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4 O 





OLD SALEM IN LEBANON 



A HISTORY OF THE CONGREGATION 
AND TOWN 



BY 



THEODORE E. SCHMAUK, 

Pastor Of Salem Evangelical Lutheran aiurch of Lebanon, Pa and Vu^inm 
Member of the Lebanon County Historical Society ; Member of the 
Historical Society of Pennsylvania ; Ex-Preside>,t of the 
Pennsylvania- German Society. 



PUHLISHED KOK THE CONORKGATION IN COMMEMORATION OK THE CELEBRATION OK TH 
CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY op thk ERECTION OF THE CHURCH HriLDING. 



LEBANON, PA. 
1898. 






i0991 



PRESS OF 

REPORT PUBLISHING COMPANY. LTD. 

LEBANON, PA. 




DEDICATED 



TO 



Rev. B. W. Schmauk. 



PREFACE. 

This book is written in memory of the Departed 
Fathers of Old Salem. Its occasion is the present 
celebration of the centennial of the church edifice. 
My father, who served the congregation longer 
than any of her pastors, exceeding the term of Dr. 
Ernst by a few months, looked forward with eager- 
ness to the coming celebration, which would have 
rounded out the 45th anniversary of his entrance 
into the ministry and the fifteenth year of our joint 
pastorate. He desired to begin work on this his- 
tory already in last January, but I could not take it 
up then. He died unable to communicate his 
knowledge. George H. Reinoehl, who also was 
looking forward to this celebration, and who was 
an authority on church and town history, died a 
week earlier. 

These sudden deaths, together with my own ill- 
ness, and other causes, rendered it necessary to 
postpone the anniversary from June 3d, to next 
Sunday, June 19th. This book has had to be 
planned within several weeks and it was practically 
written, the sketches drawn, cuts made, the manu- 
script put into type, corrected, printed, stitched 



VI 



PREFACE 



and bound in the last eleven days. Regrettable er- 
rors will therefore doubtless appear. Except the 
binding, the whole volume is a product of Lebanon 
county workmanship. 

Special acknowledgment, in addition to use 
made of Dr. W. H. Egle's History of Lebanon 
County, Rev. P. C. Croll's Landmarks of the Leb- 
anon Valley, and Dr. Klopp's History of the Re- 
formed Church, is due to Mr. Henry S. Heilman, 
of Sunnyside, for information and for the unre- 
stricted use of his library; to the Misses Uhler and 
Mrs. John Funck for the full use of historical mate- 
rials in their possession; to Mr. Daniel Musser for 
the use of his collection of old newspapers; to Mr. 
J. F. Sachse, of Philadelphia, and Mr. Tobias Rein- 
oehl, of Lebanon; to Mr. J. P. Braselmann, of 
Annville, for rapid and intelligent sketchwork un- 
der difficult circumstances, and to many members 
of the congregation. It should also be said that 
the kindness of Messrs. Jos. and Edwin Sowers in 
the use of the resources of their establishment and 
in continuous personal service by night and day 
alone has made the issue of the book possible in 
this short space of time. 

The volume appears just one century after John 
Schnee set up the first press in our community. 



PREFACE vii 

For years the writer, who is the only pastor in Leb- 
anon who has been a member of the community 
from early childhood, has had it in mind to write 
such a history of the place as would actually unfold 
its progressive development to the reader, and as 
would investigate and settle some perplexing ques- 
tions for all time. But this is now out of the ques- 
tion, and as Old Salem is one of the several his- 
toric churches whose roots run down into the first 
beginnings of the town, he has included much town 
history in the volume. The book, even as a his- 
tory of the town, is written for the members of Sa- 
lem Church. Only 500 copies have been printed 
and only 450 copies will be sold. 

Theodore E. Schmauk. 
Salem Parsonage, 

Lebanon, June i6th, 1898. 



CONTENTS. 

Chapter I i 

ALONG THE QUITOPAHILA. 

Note on the Early Lutherans in Pennsylvania. 

Chapter II 7 

WHEN WE BELONGED TO CHESTER. 
The First Settlers. 

Chapter III 11 

THE NEW TOWNSHIP OF LEBANON. 

Chapter IV 15 

JOHN CASPAR STOEVER. 

Chapter V 19 

THE HILL CHURCH. 

Chapter VI 25 

THE CHURCH IN QRUBELAND. 

Chapter VII 28 

THE MORAVIANS AT HEBRON. 

Chapter VIII 34 

THE TOWN OF STEITZ. 

Chapter IX 49 

HOW SALEM CONGREGATION SPRANG UP. 

Chapter X 52 

THE FIRST CHURCH LOT, 

Chapter XI 58 

STOEVER IN MIDDLE AGE. 
The Town of Lebanon. 

Chapter XII 64 

OLD SALEM RECEIVES HER DEED FROM STOEVER. 



X CONTENTS 

Chapter XIII 69 

THE FIRST TRUSTEES. 

Their Acknowledgment of Trust. 

Chapter XIV yy 

OLD SALEM'S FIRST CHURCH. 

Chapter XV 87 

A NEW PASTOR. 

Chapter XVI 92 

FRIEDRICH AUGUSTUS CONRAD MUHLENBERG. 

Chapter XVII 96 

LEBANON AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 

Chapter XVIII no 

REV. WM. KURTZ AND LEBANON IN HIS DAY. 

Chapter XIX 118 

THE PARSONAGE OF 1783. 

Chapter XX 125 

CHRISTOPHER UHLER. 

Chapter XXI 129 

HOW YOUNG GEORGE LOCHMANN GOT TO LEBANON. 

Chapter XXII 134 

THE BUILDING OF SALEM CHURCH. 

Chapter XXIII 147 

THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
IN SALEM AND IN LEBANON. 

Chapter XXIV 157 

THE NEW CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 

Chapter XXV 161 

OUR NEW ORGAN. 

Chapter XXVI 163 

THE WAR OF 1812. 



CONTENTS xi 

Chapter XXVII 167 

PASTOR LOCHM ANN'S DEPARTURE. 

Chapter XXVIII 170 

THE COMING OF REV. WILLIAM ERNST. 

Chapter XXIX 176 

GOVERNOR JOHN ANDREW SCHULZE AND OTHER 
LEBANON HISTORY. 

Chapter XXX 180 

REV. JONATHAN RUTHRAUFF. 

Chapter XXXI 185 

THE SECOND PASTORATE OF DR. ERNST. 
The Organization of the Sunday-school. 

Chapter XXXII 188 

THE ARRIVAL OF REV. G. P. KROTEL. 

Chapter XXXIII 193 

REV. HOFFMAN AND FATHER HENRY S. MILLER. 

Chapter XXXIV 195 

THE FIRST PASTORATE OF REV. B. W. SCHMAUK. 

Chapter XXXV 199 

THE PASTORATE OF REV?. G. H. TRABBRT, D.D. 

Chapter XXXVI 201 

THE PASTORATE OF REVS. B. W. AND T. E. 
SCHMAUK. 






HISTORY OF 

Old Salem Church. 



CHAPTER I. 

ALONG THE QUITOPAHILA. 

N the cen- 
tral bot- 
tom of the 
beautiful 
Pennsyl- 
vania val- 
ley that 
lies like a 
sunken 
plain be- 
tween the 

Blue Kittatinny bounding the horizon at the coal 
belt on the north, and the Red Sandstone hills fill- 
ing out the great South Mountain gap in the south, 
there flow two streams, the one eastward to the 
Schuylkill to meet the waters of the Delaware, and 
the other westward to the Susquehanna. 

The banks of both streams are the seats of histor- 
ic Lutheranism.* But it is to the less famous and 




*NOTE ON THE EARLY LUTHERANS IN THIS STATE.— Penn- 
sylvania was pre-eminently the Province of Lutherans. It was settled 



2 ALONG THE QUITOPAHILA. 

more familiar one that we look today. It is along 
the Quitopahila that our congregation was planted, 
both locally and historically, and it is there that she 
has flourished like a green bay tree. 

Old Salem is the church of the Quitopahila. For 
a century and a third she has been rooted by the 
streams of water, and brought forth her fruit in her 
season. Her leaf also is not withered, and whatso- 
ever she doeth doth prosper. 

We Lutherans in the limestone valley of Lebanon 

first by them. One might term it, in a broad sense, the original terri- 
tory of the Lutheran Church in America, as New Yorlc is that of the 
Reformed Church. The Lutherans were here nearly a half century be- 
fore William Penn, and from them he secured the site on which he 
built Philadelphia, as afterwards he bought his great interior holdings 
from the Indians. The Lutheran liturgy was the first praise that went 
up to God from the shores of this State, and Luther's catechism (intended 
for the very tribes of Indians that originally owned this ground) was 
the first book (preceding Eliot's Indian Bible) translated into the In- 
dian language. In 1638 the Lutheran Swedes came. In 1682 the Quaker 
arrived. In 1683 Grerman mystics, Lutherans and Dunkers settled in 
Germantown. In 1694 a German Lutheran preacher became a prom- 
inent, if not the chief instrument in establishing the first and prin- 
ciipal Episcopal congregation in the State (Old Christ Church), and in off- 
setting that Quaker supremacy, which, if continuously maintained, might 
have changed the political and religious history of the State. In addi- 
tion to the Germans, many English persona joined his congregation. 
Some of them were Anglican Churchmen, who had come to Pennsylva- 
nia under the guise of Quakers, and who did not feel it to be safe to 
throw off that guise until they came under the influence of the bold 
and fearless Lutheran preacher, Koester. Others were Quakers 
whom he converted from irreligion. As none of these people could 
understand the German Lutheran ritual which he was using, but as all 
knew the English ritual from childhood, this Lutheran preacher, know- 
ing that the German Lutheran and English Episcopal rituals were very 
similar, and foreseeing that the future of the country would be English, 
gave up his people into Episcopal hands by introducing the Episcopal 
service. The Bishop of London, hearing of the matter, promptly took 
charge of it and sent a young clergyman, Thomas Clayton, over from 
England to report to Koester and to assist him in the care of the new 
congreg'ation. After a time Koester returned to Europe, and the congre- 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 3 

should look to the pit from which our fathers were 
digged and to the rock from whence they were 
hewn, and not feel shame. Looking back a century, 
we find them gathered within this massive monu- 
ment of native stone, built for their faith and their 
God, along the Quitopahila by their own master- 
builder, praising the Lord at its dedication. If we 
look back a century and a half we find that master- 
builder a babe in the forest along the Quitopahila 
being baptized into the Lutheran faith by the first 

gation was left in Mr. Clayton's hands. Prom that day on the Episco- 
pal Church in Provincial Pennsylvania seems to have made continuous 
effort to gain the hearts, property and children of the German denom- 
inations in order to build up the Established Church. 

Many of the most substantial families in the State deserted the Luth- 
eran faith as they became English. Thus the founder of St. Luke's 
Episcopal IlospitaJ of New York City and of the Episcopal Church of 
the Holy Communion in that city was the great grandson of Henry 
Melehoir Muhlenberg, and the grandson of F. A. C. Muhlenberg, one of 
the pastors of our Salem Lutheran Church. In the extensive effort 
made after the middle of the last century to establish the so-called 
free schools among the Germans of the State, in such places as 
Reading, Lancaster, York, Easton, etc., the idea of the originator, 
the Rev. Wm. Smith, was to educate the children of the Germans in 
the English language and the Episcopal religion. After elaborate at- 
tempts, in whioh both MuWenberg, Schlatter, and Benjamin Franklin 
were interested, and which were bitterly opposed by Christopher Sauer, 
the old G«rmantown printer, the scheme collapsed. Down to the Revo- 
lution the Episcopal Church had a certain prestige of the British crown 
to work largely in its favor among that class of people who are at- 
tracted in religion by ideas of social distinction and position. 

Referring to this matter. Dr. W. H. Egle, State Librarian of Pennsyl- 
vania, in his "History of Lebanon County," pp. 12, 13, 14, says: "A 

scheme to educate the Germans was put on foot in 1755, and 

carried on for several years, but really with little good results. The 
German settlers appreciated education, for they brought their ministers 
and schoolmasters with them, and there were few who could not 
read or write. They could write their name in as great a proportion as 
their English neighbors, the Quakers. The difficulty wa«! not alone to 
educate them in the English tongue, but for the English Church. That 
they did not take kindly to, and after a lapse of a century and a quar- 



4 ALONG THE QUITOPAHILA. 

Lutheran minister* to enter and settle in 
this valley.** If we looked back two cen- 
turies we would find not even the trail of 
a white man's foot along the margin of this 
as yet unknown Indian stream. It ran in soli- 
tude, with remarkable directness, from marshy 
pools at Hebron toward the west bending about at 
what is now termed Meadow Bank to make con- 
fluence in wider basin with the extinct Hazeldyke, 



ter, in many localities there is the same objection to the scheme of 1755. 

Speaking of the objections of the Germans to the Public School 
System, he says: "Foremost among the opponents ctf the free school 
system were the Quakers, the opposition arising from the fact that, 
having had schools established for many years, supported by their own 
contributions, they were opposed to being taxed for the educational 
maintenance of others. Precisely similar were the objections in the 
German districts. * * * The German emigrants brought their school- 
masters with them, and schools were kept and supported by them. More 
frequently the church pastor served as teacher, and hence, when the 
proposition came to establish the system of public education, the people 
were not prepared for it, for the free schools severed education from 
positive religion. But .... to the credit and honor of the German ele- 
ment in Pennsylvania, Gov, George Wolf, the father of the free-school 
system, and Governor Joseph Ritner and William Audenried, the earnest 
advocates of the same, were of German descent." To this we may 
add that the fathers of the State school system, the Superintendents 
of Public Instruction, Wickersham, Higbee, Schaeffer and Houck are 
Pennsylvania-Germans. 

In speaking of the old German parochial system of instruction in Penn- 
sylvania, one of our leading historians (not a clergyman) has recently 
asserted that for the development of good, sterling chargucter the system 
has never been equalled or surpassed by any of the later methods of 
education. 
- Early in the 18th century, in 1702, and especially in 1710, the Germans, 

♦The first minister was the Reformed, Rev. Conrad Templeman, who 
arrived in 1727 and settled in Rexmont. Stoever did not arrive until 
1728, and did not reach the Lebanon Valley until several years afterward. 

**Anastaslus Uhler (Lebanon). Son Christopher, b. Feb. 2, 1741; bap. 
March 25, 1741. Sponsors, Balthasar Ort and his wife Barbara. "Private 
Records of Rev. John Caspar Stoever." Eng. Trans, p. 15. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 5 

and further on after taking into itself first the Bran- 
dywine and then the Snitz Creek, and several other 
streams, passed through rising ground to meet fin- 
ally its bigger Indian relative, the Swatara, 

The creek which is the actual though uninten- 
tional physical key to our town's early history, and 
which gave the original name to our whole region 
or township, was fed then as now by springs rising 
from the limestone beds, was fringed and shaded 
by dwarf and giant willows, widened into meadows 

Lutherans, Reformed and the sects began to come and to penetrate 
the great Kittaniny valley wWch stretches across the whole State in 
a wide and gentle curve. On November 24th, 1703, Justus Falckner, 
a Lutheran theological student from Germany, was ordained to the 
holy ministry at Gloria Dei, the Swedish church upon the banks of the 
Delaware. The ceremony was performed by the three Swedisih Luth- 
eran pastors. This was the first ordination of a Protestant clergyman 
in the Western world. (See J. F. Sachse's "Genesis of the German Luth- 
eran Church in the Land of Penn," "Lutheran Church Review," 
1897, p. 290.) In this same year the beginning of the first German Luth- 
eran congregation in the State was made at Falckner' s Swamp. In 
1717 Rev. Gerhard Henkel appeared as pastor of the same Lutheran 
Church, which increased and flourlsihed to such an extent that fifty acres 
of land were given for its use in 1719, and in 1721 a larger church and 
a school house were built, (See "Lutheran Church Review," 1897, p. 299). 
By 1718, Governor Keith became alarmed at the large Influx of German 
emigrants. In 1719 the first Reformed church was built in Germantown, 
and in the next year the first Reformed minister arrived. Thus first 
by siprinklings and then by thousands the Germans settled. By the mid- 
dle of the century fully one-half of the population of the State was 
German. The Lutheran element outnumbered the Reformed two to 
one. "It may safely be asserted that the Lutheran population of Penn- 
sylvania alone in the year 1750 aggregated the enormous figure of 
60,000." In 1728 the Penn proprietaries were frightened at the number 
of Germans coming in and would have been glad to keep them out. 
But these thrifty and economical settlers soon demonstrated themselves 
to be a most substantial and pro.<5perity-producing element in the 
State. Penn himself wanted the State to be settled largely by Ger- 
mans. He made several personal trips to Germany. He had his agent 
Furley, on the continent, and such men as Pastorius in America to 
give glowing accounts of the new Province to the Germans and to 



6 ALONG THE QUITOPAHILA. 

marshy near the stream and rising into rocky wood- 
land pasture running back to the ridge of the re- 
gion which we now call Walnut street. This ridge, 
covered undoubtedly with forest, which came in 
strong and heavy within the memory of living inhab- 
itants, near Seventh and Walnut Streets, at the resi- 
dence of one of our members, Mr. William Spahn, 
ran westward toward Annville almost without inter- 
ruption, except for the broad break made by the bed 
of the Hazeldyke. Between this Hill street ridge 
of limestone and the still greater ledges of shales 
and gravel one-half mile north of the stream* was 
the silent heart of Lebanon Valley. The Indians 
did not neglect this fair region but came through 
perhaps once or twice a year, burning the high 
grass before them to start out the game, and leav- 
ing unsightly tracts of running undergrowth and 
scrub oak. We know that black and Spanish oak 
white, chestnut and red oak, birch, poplar, maple, 
and hickory and walnut trees were found in the val- 
ley, and that some of the timber was heavy. The 
Quitopahila was the only boundary, track or mark 
in the solitary wilderness. 

stimulate the emigration hither. In the first volume of the new 
"Narrative and Critical History of Pennsylvanda under German In- 
fluence," Mr. J. F. Sachse has gathered a large number of fac-simile 
title pages of brochures and pamphlets written to stimulate this 
emigration. Later on many false inducements and shameful promises 
were made to get the Germans over, and those coming' m as "Re- 
dempti oners" were actually sold as slaves until they had redeemed their 
passage money, though they themselves were more or less ignorant of 
the nature of the transaction until they were landed. 

♦Receding into gentle slopes toward the east, broken grandly by the 
channel of the Brandywine, and again by the gully at the Basin and 
rising into Tunnel Hill, on which to the west when the white man came 
the first seed of Lutheranism in the county sprouted. 



CHAPTER II. 



Tac 



WHEN WE BELONGED TO CHESTER. — THE FIRST 
SETTLERS. 

HEN Penn came up the Delaware 
and erected his Frame of Govern- 
ment, he included all our region in 
Chester county, the other two 
counties of the State being Bucks 
and Philadelphia. There was no 
white settlement north of the 
mouth of the Swatara. Penn 
himself penetrated the wilder- 
ness as far as this point in 1790, 
and proposed locating his capital 
Tcu^a^'of^^ivA^iA. there.* The place was well 
known to the French and Indians. Penn himself 
visited it again in 1701. 

Between, say 1715 and 1730, the first settlers 
(except, perhaps, those at the water part of Lon- 
donderry) entered our present Lebanon county, in 
1718 the first tax list shows that there were m all 
of Lancaster, Dauphin and Lebanon counties and 
the Tulpehocken, 129 taxable persons residing, ot 
which 86 were Germans. Among these we already 
meet the families of Heer, Bowman, Miller, Moyer, 
Shank, Funk, Hoober, Boyer, Graff, Peter Yorte 
and Hans Weaver.** 




•Comp. J. F. Sachse's paper on The Sufiquehanna. 
♦•Pot list see Egle's Hist, of Dauphin Co., p. 23. 



8 THE FIRST SETTLERS. 

How few of these belonged to Lebanon, and that 
scarcely one belonged to Quitopahila, can be im- 
agined. 

Indeed the centre of the Lebanon Valley, along 
the Ouitopahila, seems to have been one of the last 
places reached by the settlers. They came in from 
the east by way of the Tulpehocken, from the south 
by way of Klinefeltersville and Schaefferstown, 
from the west and north by following the banks 
of the Swatara and little Swatara, and probably 
from the northeast by way of Oley and Maxatawny, 
in Berks county. Pressing nearer from all points 
of the compass, they finally reached what became 
the Quitopahila Township.* 

The earliest deed or land-warrant of which we 
have been told is that of the ancestor of Drs. D. 
P. and M. B. Gerberich, in Hanover, said to have 



*I have examined a great many documents on this point and gone over 
all of Taylor's manuscript surveys and land warrants covering Lancaster 
(and Lebanon) Township. Jacob Taylor was Surveyor General of Penn- 
sylvania from 1701 to 1T33, when he was succeeded by Benjamin East- 
burn. His i>apers were kept in his family for a long while, and finally 
gathered and are now in possession of the Historical Society of Penn- 
sylvania, under the title "Taylor's Papers, Being a Collection of War- 
rants, Surveys, Letters, Etc., Relating to the Early Settlement of Penn- 
sylvania." The Pequa Greek district (768 acres) in Lancaster county was 
surveyed as early as 1710. Cbnestoga Creek was surveyed in 1718, and 
large parts of Lancaster Township in 1729-1730. Michael Bachman's 
land near Mannheim was surveyed on the 17th of May, 1730, but his land 
in Lebanon Township not until 1737, when it adjoined "An Irish Settle- 
ment." Thomas Sower received a tract of 1230 acres on a branch of 
Swahatawro Creek, with vacant land on all four sides, which was sur- 
veyed April 20, 1730. Already in 1726 there was a "Draught of a Tract 
of Land situate on the branches of Swahatawre and Skulkill about 8 
miles Northwest from the Indian settlement called Tulpehocken, con- 
taining 17920 acres," where the little Swatara and "a small branch 
of the ShulkiU" come into proximity. It was "laid out Aug. 10, 1726." 
It was just east of Thomas Sower's tract. On May 12, the proprietors 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. g 

been given in 1723. The original Gerberich came 
to the county via Philadelphia in the very year in 
which Benjamin Franklin, then an eighteen-year- 
old boy, arrived in that city and made it his home. 

But in the same year, 1723, the first company of 
persecuted Palatines of New York State (who were 
robbed of their improved lands by legal scoundrels 
at Albany), led by Indian guides, floated three hun- 
dred miles down the Susquehanna, driving their 
cattle and horses along the shore, as far as the 
mouth of the Swatara, and proceeded up the same 
to the little Swatara, and from there across Bethel 
township to the Tulpehocken, near Stouchsburg. 
Five years later a second company came to our 
county in the same way, under the leadership of 
the young Conrad Weiser. This was in 1729. 

The borders of the county were showing signs 
of activity for several years before this time. On 

gave ten warrants of a thousand acres each, seeming to extend from the 
mouth of the little Swatara eastward and north to "a barren moun- 
tain." Four creeks in this land empty into the little Swatara. It was 
surveyed Sept. 27, 1732. In 1734, George Miley's 300 acres on a branch of 
the Swatara adjoining George Reynold's land, and Baltzar Ort's 200 
acres about four miles to the of Quitapeheala Creek, and Mi- 
chael Baughman's on a branch of the Swatara, and a number of tracts 
between the Tulpehocken and the Swatara were surveyed. On Oct. 19, 

1735, John and Richard Penn gave a warrant to secure the 10,000 acres 
of John Page, "as soon as we have settled such doubts as are between 
us and the Indians, and then to be executed preferable to all others to 
take in the survey made by David Powell for Wm. Auhey about the 
year 1723 of 75 per cent, and the residue of the 1000 acres to be sur- 
veyed as near and convenient to that parcell as may be." 

The actual settlement of the smaller tracts was generally years in ad- 
vance of their survey. 

Among those who arrived from Germany between 1720 and 1750 were, 
Nov. 9, 1738, Pfeter and Andreas Kreitzer, Andreas Beyerle; Sept. 1, 

1736, John Philip Wageman; Aug. 30, 1743, Jacob Wagman, Jacob Weg- 



lO THE FIRST SETTLERS. 

the south it is said that Kurtz began the iron in- 
dustry as early as 1726,* and in 1728 the Grubbs 
commenced their iron works. In the east, at 
Stouchsburg, in 1727, the Lutheran Palatines from 
the Schoharie, though without any minister, be- 
gan to build a small log church and school-house, 
known at Zion's, or Rieth's church. On Sundays 
they met here to sing and have the Gospel and a 
sermon read to them. They were without a pas- 
tor for six years, and became involved in great dif- 
ficulties on that account.** Still further east in Man- 
atawny, i. e., near Pottstown, the Germans were 
having their first conflict with the Indians, in 1728. 
In the same year, in Philadelphia, the first two 
German books in the State were published, and in 
September the theological student, John Caspar 
Stoever, arrived in that city. 

On May loth, 1729, an event of great importance 
took place. Lebanon Township was cut ofif from 
Chester by law, and with the present counties of 
Lancaster, Berks, Dauphin and York, was consti- 
tuted Lancaster county. It was now no longer nec- 
essary to go a full hundred miles to find a court, 
a sheriff or a prison. 

matin; Aug. 30, 1737. Johan Chrlstoph Meckel; Oct. 5, 1737, Peter Mahr- 
steller, Georg Casper Pemsler, Hans Georg Krause; Oct. 21, 1727, Mi- 
chael Reuter; Sept. 9, 1738, Philip Gebhart; Sept. 3, 1739, Michael Krause, 
Dec. 11, 1739, John Reitenauer, Sr. and Jr.; Nov. 20. 1741, Henrich En- 
sminger, Hans Niclas Eiesenhaur, Johan Peter Eiesenhaur; Sept. 3. 1742, 
Johan Valtentin Gloninger; Sept. 2, 1742. Balthasar Groh; Oct. 12. 1747, 
Georg Philip Groh; Sept. 20, 1743. Jost Folmer; Sept. 20. 1743, Johannas 
Schnei, Michael Steckbeck, Casper and Johan Reitenauer; Sept. 27, 1746, 
Johannls Krause. 

•Sherman Day's Historical Collections of Pennsylvania, p. 388. 

•♦The church is still active and Is served by Rev. E. S. Brownmlller. 



CHAPTER III. 







THE NEW TOWNSHIP OF LEBANON. 

T AND before this time the 
virgin wilderness of the 
Ouitopahila was startled. 
Hoofs of horses were be- 
ing heard on the stones. 
The creek was being 
forded. Cows would be 
soon browsing here and 
there upon the banks. 
The forest was resound- 
ing at wide intervals with 
blows of the axe. A few log cabins, often far apart, 
were going up. The Noacre and Spyker families 
were here, several miles east of town as early as 
1723.* Balzer Orth with his two boys, Balthazer, 
aged 1 1 years, and Adam, aged 7 years, came about 
1725. George Loesch toward Womelsdorf and 
Adam Kettering may have been in the same vicin- 
ity of Hebron. These were all to the east of the site 
of Lebanon. 

Michael Burst came up in August, 1729, 
along the Manatawny and the Tulpehocken, 
and squatted down on a tract of land two miles 
northwest from the present site of Lebanon.** 

♦Effle's "History of Lebanon County." 

•♦He was Daniel Rupp's maternal grandfather. See "Rupp's History 
of Lebanon County." 



12 NEW TOWNSHIP OF LEBANON. 

Steitz came in soon after and located southeast of 
Burst on the Quitopahila. The Reynolds located 
to the southwest. The Bechtels and the Meyleys 
probably were in the township, each with a little 
babe. And now, in 1731, the year in which the 
Old State House building in Philadelphia was be- 
gun, the first wedding was celebrated in the Leb- 
anon wilderness, and the ceremony was performed 
by the first Lutheran minister who had ever come 
to these parts. The parties were Francis Reynolds 
and Catharine Steitz. George Steitz possibly be- 
came the brother-in-law of Francis Reynolds, 
thereby, and these were the two men who, with 
the son of this marriage, afterwards laid out Leb- 
anon. The two Lights took up their farms to the 
north, the one where our Fifth and the other where 
our Sixth ward is now erected. In September, 1732, 
John Peter Kucher, the prominent blacksmith- 
farmer, came over from Germany in the Loyal Ju- 
dith, and settled east of Lebanon along the Quito- 
pahila, near those already at Hebron, but toward 
Lebanon. A large number of the settlers and their 
families were Lutheran, and George Steitz and Pe- 
ter Kucher signed their names together, along with 
John Caper Stever, Andreas and Peter Kreutzer, 
Peter Gebhard, Adam Ulrich, John and Martin 
Waidmann, George Eichelberger and 156 others, 
to the letter, binding themselves to services in the 
'*true and pure Evangelical Lutheran religion, based 
upon the Word of God and in accord with the unal- 
tered Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 1 3 

Symbolical Books, and the two Catechisms of Lu- 
ther," which was deposited in the corner-stone of 
Christ church, Stouchsburg, eleven years later on. 
In this year, 1732, the Heylmanns and a number 
of other settlers arrive. It is only now (1732) that 
the land of Lebanon county is actually purchased 
from the Indians by the State proprietaries, and in 
1734 the settlers begin to take out warrants for 
their lands. Among these are George Steitz for 
300 acres, to which he added 350 more within the 
next half-dozen years; John Frederick for 200 acres, 
and Rudy Hunsigger. The next year Michael 
Baughman and Balzar Orth take out warrants. Two 
years later Peter Kucher and Caspar Stoever take 
theirs. The year following, Adam Fulmer, Martin 
Cofler, John Reynolds and Ulrich Cross take theirs 
out. The Lights waited four or five years longer 
still. 

During these early years, there was no Lutheran 
church, except the troubled little Rieth's church, 
built at Stouchsburg in 1727, nearer than* Falck- 
ner's Swamp, in the valley of the Perkiomen, and 
the Swedish churches in Philadelphia; and the first 
appearance of a young clergyman in these regions 
must have been a marked and welcome event. 
Though not arrayed in broadcloth, nor adorned 
with a high hat and gold-headed cane, this clergy- 
man, in accordance with Lutheran custom of that 
day, had a better education in his line than some 
of our college graduates possess to-day. In addition 

•The Swedish Church at Molattin may also have been an exception. 



14 NEW TOWNSHIP OF LEBANON. 

to theology, he had studied Latin, Greek, Hebrew 
and French. He was a man of marvellous energy, 
a born pioneer, a man who traveled, as a hardy and 
independent missionary, over the counties in East- 
ern Pennsylvania for fifty years, combining the 
qualities of an outspoken country squire and land- 
owner with those of a sturdy and self-denying min- 
ister of the Church. His name was John Caspar 
Stoever. 



CHAPTER IV. 




JOHN CASPAR STOEVER. 

N THE nth of September, 
1728, John Caspar Stoe- 
ver arrived in Philadel- 
phia on the ship Good 
Will, David Crocket, 
master. He was a theo- 
, logical student, and only 
21 years of age. He went 
to the neighborhood of 
the Trappe,* and spent his first year there. We 
know that in the year 1729 he officiated at some 
marriages and baptisms at Philadelphia and at Lan- 
caster.** On March 8, 1730, he baptized a young 
child at the Trappe, a daughter of John George 
Marsteller, and began perhaps the earliest existing 
Lutheran church record in Pennsylvania.*** Dur- 
ing his second year in America, in May, i730,Stoever 
removed to New Holland, Lancaster county. In 
the summer of 1731, Stoever traveled to Raritan, 
N. J., and presented himself to old Pastor Daniel 
Falckner as a candidate for ordination. After 
hearing Stoever's trial sermon, Rev. Falckner re- 

•Thls was the congregation to which Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg 
came when he landed 14 years later. 

••In 1733 he entered these in the church records he began of the congre- 
gations at these places. 

•♦•See Kretschmajin's "History of The Old Trappe Church, •' p. 3. for a 
fac- simile reproduction in Stoever" s handwriting of this old record. 



l6 JOHN CASPAR STOEVER. 

fused to ordain him, and Stoever returned to Penn- 
sylvania. Whether Falckner detected any lack of 
spiritual-mindedness in the young man, or saw 
some defects of character in him, or whether his 
views or ordination forbade the administration of 
the rite in such a way, it is impossible to say. 

At this time there was probably not a single or- 
dained Lutheran minister in Pennsylvania except 
the Swedes in Philadelphia.''' Under such circum- 
stances it was almost inevitable that young Stoever 
should begin pastoral work at the request of the 
people. He baptized, he married, he buried. He 
became one of the most extraordinary and inde- 
fatigable missionary pastors and preachers that the 
State of Pennsylvania has had.** In 1731 he 
traveled to many places in Lancaster, Berks, Phil- 
adelphia and other counties, and performed pas- 
toral acts. Perhaps he got to Lebanon township 
as early as 1731, and there married Francis Rey- 
nolds and Catharine Steitz. In 1732 he repeated 
his journeys. In 1733 he went from New Holland 
to Philadelphia, and having been ordained in a 
barn at the Trappe by a pastor Schultze, who came 
over from Europe for a short time, the young man 
acted as the temporary pastor of the German Phil- 
adelphia congregation, and began the Church Rec- 



*On account of the political differences between the Swedes and the 
Germans on the continent of Europe at this time, there was no inter- 
course between the German and Swedish Lutherans before 1740, See 
"Genesis of German Lutheiran Church in Pennsylvania," "Lutheran 
Church Review." 

♦*Stoever's work, in contrast with that of Muhlenberg, was that of a 
personal pastor, and not that of an oreanizer of the church. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 1 7 

ords there. Ninety-five persons were at his first 
communion in the Fall of 1733. 

Meanwhile he continued traveling, gathering the 
people into congregations and beginning their 
church records. He was pastor in New Holland 
from 1730 to 1746. He may have organized Old 
Trinity, Lancaster, as early as 1730, at least in 
1733, at which time he preached there with some 
regularity. On the eighteenth Sunday after Trin- 
ity, 1733, he had 149 communicants in Lancaster. 
In 1733 he began the Church Records of Muddy 
Creek, New Holland, Lancaster, Bernville, Tulpe- 
hocken, Hill Church and Philadelphia. In Sep- 
tember, 1733, he organized the congregation 
at York (there was no town there then), 
and came once a month to York from New Holland 
(or later from Lebanon) for a period of about ten 
years, when he resigned at York. In the year 1733 he 
had 20 marriages; in 1734, 25 marriages; in 1735, 
28 marriages; in 1738, 53 marriages, among which 
was that of Peter Kucher, the blacksmith, on the 
Quitopahila, on October 6, of this year; in 1739, 
75 marriages.* In 1735 Stoever also became pas- 
tor of the opposition party at Rieth's church, 
Stouchsburg, and remained such until 1743, when 
he was at the head of one of the parties founding 
the new Christ church. 

In the region of the Quitopahila at least as early as 
1733' he gathered the scattered Lutherans and or- 

♦These are those recorded In Pastor Stoever' s diary, but the Church 
Records show that he performed pastoral acta not mentioned in the 
diary. 



l8 JOHN CASPAR STOEVER. 

ganized what is now known as the Hill Church. 
Rev. Stoever had been married in 1733, and on 
March i, 1737, he took out a warrant for 300 acres 
of land, and warrants for additional land later on. 
In 1737, he undertook the erection of that substan- 
tial home on the Quitopahila which is still standing 
and in use. Three years were consumed in finishing 
this solid mill structure, with its walls three feet 
thick. Finally the building was ready for occu- 
pancy, and in 1740 Pastor Stoever removed from 
New Holland to the new home on the Quitopahila, 
where he lived and where he died 39 years later. 
Though he continued to travel until near the end of 
his life, he permanently identified himself with our 
community, and we shall meet him as pastor, as the 
head of the land company of Lebanon, and as one 
of the founders and pastors of Salem church. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE HILL CHURCH. 

ON the southern slope of the gravel ledge, bor- 
dering the Quitopahila Valley, about three 
and a half miles west of Lebanon, in a 
heavily-wooded district, the original Church on the 
Quitopahila, or as it is now called, the Berg 
Kirche, was built in the year 1733. Mr. 
Stoever is said to have organized the congre- 
gation already in 1732. Apart from the rec- 
ords which Mr. Stoever began in 1733 and 
which are still preserved, the knowledge of the 
founding of Hill church is derived from a para- 
graph in an article of Dr. Lochman's, in the *'Evan- 
gelisches Magazin" for 1812, Vol. I., p. 20. Dr. 
Lochman says that among his congregations the 
Hill church congregation is the oldest. ''Already 
in the year 1733 it was gathered at a time when the 
Indians still made frequent incursions into the re- 
gion and murdered. Mr. J. C. Stoever was preacher 
at that time, and interested himself in the scattered 
sheep. The people met together, took up a vacant 
piece of ground, and built a wooden church. In the 
beginning they were content to bring it under roof, 
and to use logs as seats and only after a number of 
years were they able to finish it. The hunger for 
the Word of God, and the zeal for divine service 
must have been very great at that time. For the 
hearers gathered from far and near, and did not 



20 



THE HILL CHURCH. 











FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE PAGE OF STOEVER'S ORIGINAL HILL CHURCH 
RECORD, 1733. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 21 

permit themselves to be kept away by any dangers. 
Frequently guns were taken along to church for 
defense on the road, not only against wild animals, 
but also against the far wilder Indians; and when 
service was held, men with loaded arms were fre- 
quently set as sentinels. After the death of Pastor 
Stoever this congregation was served by Pastor 
Melsheimer, and from the year 1794 on, by Pastor 
Lochman. The church stands about four miles 
northwest of Lebanon, and is held in union by the 
Lutherans and Reformed and possesses sixty acres 
of land, of which the half belongs to Lutherans." 
There was no floor in the log building, and it is 
said that in the winter months a wood-fire of logs 
was built on the outside of the church, around 
which the people would sit and warm themselves 
before the service and until the minister arrived. 

For a whole decade this little Lutheran congrega- 
tion* worshiped under the guidance of J. Caspar 
Stoever in its unfinished log cabin. But now a num- 
ber of events were occurring which doubtless stirred 
the congregation up to complete the structure. 
Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg had arrived in Penn- 
sylvania in 1742 and was organizing congregations 
more thoroughly and building churches. The Mo- 
ravian missionaries were extraordinarily active in 
making converts in Bethel and Tulpehocken, and 
had come even to Hebron. In 1738 the Reformed 



♦There do not seem to have been any Reformed participating in the 
organization of 1723. The Heilman family which had settled in the 
township In 1732 were Lutherans, 



22 THE HILL CHURCH, 

Heilmans had come in and the Kelkers had arrived 
in 1743, and there was thus the nucleus of a Re- 
formed congregation in the region. To crown all, 
Rev. Stoever had been publicly deposed from the 
ministry in the quarrel at Tulpehocken by Count 
Zinzendorf and the Moravians in 1742, and in 1743 
the new Christ church which Stoever's friends had 
helped to build, and of which he had hoped to be- 
come pastor, had at the suggestion of Muhlenberg 
elected Tobias Wagner as pastor. It was no won- 
der, therefore, that Stoever, thus cut off, should turn 
his energies to the completion and improvement 
of the Hill church. Tulpehocken had had its great 
dedication in 1743, and Stoever, no doubt, decided 
that the Hill church should also be improved and 
completed and have a ceremony of dedication. As 
his people were few in number, and the Reformed 
element now also needed church accommodation, 
and as the Reformed doubtless contributed liberally 
to the completion of the building, and as both felt 
the necessity of saving themselves from inroads that 
were being made by the Moravians, the two denom- 
inations united in the adoption of a mutual agree- 
ment which specified that both had built and both 
should have a common interest in this church. This 
agreement seems to be in the language of Stoever 
and was probably drafted by him. It was signed 
on the day before the dedication, Rev. Stoever be- 
ing at the head of the Lutheran congregation and 
Rev. Conrad Templeman the pastor of the Re- 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 23 

formed congregation.* The dedication occurred 
on the 1 2th of August, 1744. The agreement con- 
sisted of twelve articles and each congregation 
bound the other in the full sum of 100 pounds Penn- 
sylvania currency to keep the agreement "firmly, 
strictly, constantly, at all times and inviolably with- 
out a single perversion and without any guess 
work, according to the true literal meaning." It 
was ''Done at Lebanon the i ith of August, the year 
of our Saviour 1744." We reproduce the first five 
of the articles :** 

HIL.L CHURCH. RULES OF 1744. 

Lancaster County, In the Province of Pennsylvania. In the name of 
tlie most Holy Trinity, of God the Father, God the Son, and God the 
Holy Ghost, Amen. 

Whereas, it has pleased God to unite the hearts and minds of those 
men and Inhabitants in the region Quitebehoehle, in the Township of 
I^ebanon, (who profess both the Evangelical Lutheran and Reformed 
Roligion.) in peace and love, so that they have unanimously and in 
common built a church and house of God, bounded on the south east 
by John Kreuter's plantation, south west by Thomas Clark's, north 



♦Conrad Templeman settled in Lebanon County at Tempi enian's Hill 
near the present village of Rexmont as early as 1727. He was forty 
years old at the time and a tailor by trade. He taught school and offi- 
ciated somewhat after the manner of a lay reader at tne Reformed 
services, remaining unordained for the first twenty years of his activity 
here. His ministrations to the Reformed people of Lebanon County 
extended from 1727 or 28 to 1760 or 61. He took up two hundred acres 
of land from the Government. Rev. Michael Schlatter, the Father of 
the Reformed Church in the State, came to AmericsL in 1746, and in 
1747, while visiting many localities in Pennsylvania, and encouraging 
the Reformed congregations to unite themselves into a Synod, also paid 
a visit to Templeman and found him "a man of correct views, quiet and 
peaceable in his spirit, by which he has won the love and respect of the 
community." Schlatter recommended that "the old man should be or- 
dained." Rev. Templeman also preached at the Grube Church, and at 
Swatara. In 1760 he was stone blind and could hold service only in his 
own house. He died about 1761. See Dr. Klopp's "History of Tabor 
First Reformed Church." 

♦♦As they are given in "The Trial of John Keller and others, Lebanon, 
1842," p. 27, in translation. 



24 THE HILL CHURCH. 

west by Peter Heylman'g, north east by John Ringer's. Now as this 
house and church shall, on tomorrow, the 12th of August, it being the 
12th Sunday after Trinity, be the first time consecrated and blessed by 
the members of these two congregations, and those attached to their 
respective denominations, by means of the preaching of the word of 
God, and the administering of the Holy Sacraments, to which God may, 
from above, abundantly impart His grace and blessing by the aid of the 
Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ. Now, in order that, as well at pres- 
ent as in future, no controversy, discord, or quarreling whatever, may 
arise, either among us or our posterity, in the mutual use of this house 
but that regard be at all times had to it, with all diligence, that the 
name of God be honored and praised, both by the respective ministers 
and hearers, the kingdom of Christ increased, our neighbor built up and 
as far as possible the happiness of all men promoted. It has been agreed 
in regard to the following I'Oints, to set them down on paper, and to sign 
them, by which both congregations bind themselves to each other, by 
the help of God, to observe them at all times strictly, firmly and in- 
violately, 

1. No other doctrine shall be proclaimed in it, nor the Sacraments 
be otherwise administered, than solely according to the clear and pure 

rule and guide of the Word of God, in the whole of the Holy Scriptures, 
both of the Old and New Testament, and according to the institution 
of Jesus Christ, to which is added on the part of the Evangelical 
Lutherans the unchanged Confession of Augsburg, and the symbolical 
books of the same; but on the i>art of the Evangelical Reformed, the 
Heidelberg Catechism, together with their Confessions. 

2. The respective ministers shall avoid in their sermons all unneces- 
sary dispute and offensive controversy in relation to matters of religion, 
but rather direct their mind and thoughts upon this, that the Word of 
God be preached as well pure and unadulterated as also clearly, intellig- 
ibly, and in an edifying manner. 

3. No other preachers but such as have been regularly called either 
by the whole congregation, or at least by most of the members of the 
congregation, shall have right and power on either side to perform their 
official duties in the same. 

4. It shall absolutely not be allowed by either party to any preachers, 
let them call themselves Lutheran or Reformed, if they have but the 
slightest external fellowship with those so called Herrnhuthian or Mora- 
vian Brethren, much less if they should even teach their principles, 
nor yet to any other Sectarian ministry, of whatsoever name they may 
be, to teach in this church, nor even to perform the slightest clerical 
service. 

5. Should it ever happen, sooner or later, that such a preacher, let 
him call himself Lutheran or Reformed, or otherwise, should come in 
sheep' s-clothing, and persuade the congregation by lies and deception, 

to accept him as clear and true, but the deception be some time after 
revealed but in the slightest degree, then such an one shall immediately, 
without delay, be dismissed. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE CHURCH IN GRUBELAND. 

FEW years after the estab- 
lishment of the Berg 
K ire he, the Gmbe Kirehe 
sprang up. The one 
church was in the hill 
country, the other in the 
limestone valley. The 
one site was in the 
''Gravel-land," the other 
site in the "Grube-land." 
This "Grube-land" is the 
heavy clay land of South 
Lebanon township. Unlike the "Berg-land," it was 
not heavily timbered at the time of its first settle- 
ment, and was covered densely with a low, rank 
growth of vines, bushes, and weeds, which it be- 
came necessary to ''grub" out before it was possi- 
ble to plough, or even to use a rude path.* Here, 
about two and a half miles southeast of Lebanon a 
church was organized by Rev. Stoever on the Lu- 
theran, and Rev. Templeman on the Reformed side. 




*Rev. J. W. Eaxly in The Lutheran of 1879. Rev. Early says he can- 
not vouch for the correctness of the tradition, but states that it was 
g-enerally accepted as the true explanation of the term "Grubeland" 
forty or fifty years ago. This is corroborated by Messrs. John and 
Tobias Reinoehl, who state, further, that the necessity of digging such 
deep wells ("Brunnen graben") in "Grubeland," in contrast with the 
surface waters in the "Gravel-land," had something to do with the be- 
stowal of the name. 



26 THE CHURCH IN GRUBELAND^ 

On the Brubaker farm evidences of the foundation 
of this building and of the old graveyard are still 
to be seen. It seems impossible to dispel the mys- 
tery that hangs over the origin and history of this 
congregation, from which undoubtedly a part of the 
membership of Salem church was drawn. It was 
supposed for a long while that old Father Roland, 
of South Lebanon township, had documents and 
the records of this church in his possession, but such 
seems not to have been the case. In any case the 
substantial farming population of South Lebanon 
township worshiped there before Lebanon was 
laid out, and the church seems to be the one referred 
to as having been used by the Moravians for their 
communion in 1750. 

Apparently years after its erection (and possibly 
because a new location for worship in the proposed 
town of Lebanon was being spoken of), "on the 
7th of January, 1755, Jacob Hoecker (or Hocker) 
conveyed by deed two acres of land to Christopher 
Long, George Ellinger, Jacob Grove and John 
Wolfersberger, for the use of the Reformed and 
Lutheran congregations at Grubbenland, on which 
the church was built."* Two years later the con- 
gregation received a chalice marked, "A. W., 
1757," for the administration of the sacrament, and 
three years later a flagon marked, "J- E., 1760," 
was added. These are the earliest historical me- 



•Dr. Klopp's "History of Tabor 5'irst Reformed Church," Lebanon, 
Peruia., p. 8. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 



27 



morials of Salem church.* The Moravian church 
at Hebron, and the holding of Lutheran services in 
Lebanon, together with the erection of a Reformed 
church there in 1762,** may have caused the mem- 
bership to decline, and the building was said to 
have been in a dilapidated condition by 1768 and 
to have ceased to be occupied by that time. 

On the 22nd day of November, 1762, JohnKarn- 
sher and wife conveyed to John Steiger, Frederick 
Wolfesberger, Martin Hiller and David Harpster, 
trustees and wardens, for the use of the German 
Lutheran and Calvinist congregations, the [two] 
acres and twelve perches of land between George 
Glassbrenner and John Hamsher, now in S. Leba- 
non Township, for the sum of five pounds.*** This 
was for burial purposes. 

•The Chalice of 1757 and the flagon of 1760 do not seem to be among' 
the historic communion vessels of Salem Church. One well acquainted 
with these vessels states that she remembers years ago a little upright 
tankard or pot which was kept with them, but if such was the case it 
has disappeared. 

**The Tabor Church was dedicated on the 18th of July, 1762, and was 
used until June 12, 1792, when it was much damaged by lightning. See 
Dr. Klopp's "History of First Reformed Church," p. 10. 

♦**On May 5, 1870, the Salem and Tabor congregations had an act passed 
to enable them to dispose of that part of the land not used as a burial 
ground that the remainder might be kept in repair. 



CHAPTER VIL 



THE MORAVIANS AT HEBRON. 



''HE Orth family had settled 
east of Hebron as early 
as 1725.* But the Mo- 
ravians as such did not 
begin to come to Penn- 
sylvania until ten years 
later/''* Then several 
evangelists arrived to la- 
bor among the 
Schwenkfelders. Bishop 
Spangenberg himself 
came over in 1736. He 
is said to have met Con- 
rad Weiser, the school- 
master of the Tulpe- 
hocken, who was much disgusted with the party 
spirit in the Lutheran Rieth's church at Stouchs- 
burg, and was having some connection with the 

•The ancestors of this family are said, in Dr. Egle's History, to have 
moved to Moravia about the close of the 17th century, and thence to 
the Palatinate. Whether they were actually Moravians when they ar- 
rived in America is not known to the writer. 

**The first Moravian evangelist in America, George Boehnisch, landed 
at Philadelphia, Sept. 22, 1734, having been sent by Zinzendorf with 
Christopher Baus and Christopher Wiegner to accompany the Schwenk- 
felder exiles to America; Boehnisch engaged in evangelistic activity for 
several years, and returned to Europe in 1737. 

Spangenberg and Bishop David Nitschmann came to Pennsylvania in 




OLD SALEM CHURCH. 29 

Ephrata community. Weiser awakened in Spang- 
enberg an interest in the Christianizing of the In- 
dians, and Spangenberg awakened in Weiser an in- 
terest in the Moravians. 

In 1740 George Whitfield was in America on his 
second visit, and created a rehgious ferment even 
in the interior of Pennsylvania. He traveled as far 
as Harris Ferry, above the mouth of the Swatara. 
Farmers flocked to hear him from great distances. 
Unmindful of the remonstrances of Parson Elder 
and John Harris at the Ferry, many of them neg- 
lected to sow their seed and found themselves in 
want at the end of the season.* Whitfield sug- 
gested to Count Zinzendorf that he send an evan- 
gelist to the Pennsylvania-Germans. Accordingly 
Zinzendorf sent Andreas Eschenbach over, and 
very soon he began to exercise an influence in the 
church strife at Tulpehocken.** 

Zinzendorf himself landed in Philadelphia in the 

April, 1736, and labored for awhile among the Schwenkfelders and others, 
making "Wiegner's house their home. 

George Neisser arrived in Pennsylvania in February, 1737, from Georgia 
and took up his abode temporarily at Wiegner's. So for awhile there 
were three of them in Pennsylvania, viz: Boehnisch, who returned to 
Europe, 1737; Spangenberg, who left for the time being in 1739, and 
Neisser; Nitschmann, the fourth left in June, 1736, and returned in 
1740. 

Andrew Eschenbach, sent to the Pennsylvania-Germans by Zinzendorf 
at Whitfield's suggestion, arrived in Philadelphia in October, 1740. 
Christian Henry Rauch and Frederick Martin (afterwards missionary 
bishop in the West Indies) were also in Pennsylvania before the end of 
1740.— Sachse's "German Pietists in Pennsylvania," p. 5. 

*Egle's History of Dauphin County, p. 38. 

**Eschenbach landed in Pennsylvania in October, 1740, and visited 
the Tulpehocken congregation from time to time. (Memoirs of Moravlaq, 
Church, p. 79.) 



30 THE MORAVIANS AT HEBRON. 

Fall of the next year, professing to be a Lutheran 
and to have the official appointment of Lutheran 
superintendent of Pennsylvania.* He, for a short 
time, gained control in the Lutheran Church in 
Philadelphia, and he made the effort, by a series 
of General Conferences or Synods of his to unite 
all the Germans into a single religious com- 
munion.** In January, 1742, Zinzendorf held his 
third Synod at Oley, and at its close he accom- 
panied Weiser to the Tulpehocken. 

After bitter strife, Zinzendorf, with three of his 
adherents,*** acting in assumed authority as "the 
Lutheran Consistorium of Pennsylvania,"**** de- 
posed John Caspar Stoever from his ministerial of- 
fice. He furnished Rieth's with several pastors of 
his own, and thus added another to the already ex- 
isting parties.***** 

♦ThJs was not the case. 

••Had the Count been accepted as Superintendent of the Lutheran 
Church, it is probable that he would have made some progress In his 
original effort to draw all the separatists and mystics, e. g., the 
Schwenckfelders and Seventh Day Baptists Into a spiritual denomination 
on a quasi-Lutheran basis and on the foundation of the Augsburg 
Confession. 

•••Pyrlaeus, Brj'oelius and Buettner. 

••••They had no such authority. 

••♦••The whole strife at the Tulpehocken was very sad and unfortunate. 
Scholars who desire to thoroughly investigate the matter may look up 
Halle Reports, pp. 249-52; Nich, Kurtz's H. R., 201-2, New Edition; 
Conrad Weiser' s History of the Cong., H. Rep., p. 191, New Edition; 
Weiser' s Conference with Bp. Cammerhof, Tresinius Hemh. Nachr. III., 
pp. 322-30; State of the Case between the Lutherans and Moravians at 
Tulpehocken, with the opinion thereon of Tench Francis, Esq., April 26, 
1755, in Berks and Schuylkill Journal, March 22, 1872; Gottlob Buttner's 
Sohreiben an den Pfarrer Stiefer, April 17, 1742, and J. Phil. Memirs 
Bericht wegen Caspar Stiefers an das Consistorium zu Phlla. Tresenii 
Hernhut. Nachr. III., 341-561; and the Records of Christ Church, Tulpe- 
hocken, and Lutheran Church Review, 1882, p. 292. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 3 1 

These things happened within less than ten miles 
of Hebron, which was only a short distance from 
the Grubeland church, where Pastor Stoever 
preached. It was in January, 1742. In September 
Zinzendorf, with a number of Moravians and with 
Conrad Weiser and two Indian converts, visited the 
Indians at Sunbury and may have passed through 
Hebron. 

In the same year, 1742, 120 Moravians in the 
newly-founded Bethlehem church, resolved to di- 
vide themselves into two halves, one part of which 
should go forth two by two as missionaries among 
the Germans, while the other part should stay at 
home and support those going forth. These men 
went forth to Emaus, Oley, Bethel, in Swatara 
township; Tulpehocken, Brickerville, Lititz, Lan- 
caster and York. Naturally the little settlement on 
the Quitopahila was on their way, and the Mora- 
vians stopping there, soon made friends. Rupp, 
in his "History of Lebanon County," says* the Mo- 
ravians also had a house of worship erected 
prior to 1743, hard by the Quitopahila, a 
mile east of the present site of Lebanon 
and a few hundred yards north from the stone 
Oratorium, which was built in 1750. In 1744 
Saur, of Germantown, printed Luther's Small Cate- 
chism, for the use of Lutheran congregations in 
Pennsylvania, but edited, prepared and annotated 
by the Moravian Zinzendorf. In this same year the 
Moravian missionary, Nyberg, introduced himself 

♦Pages 305-306. 



32 THE MORAVIANS AT HEBRON. 

to the Lutheran congregation at Lancaster as a Lu- 
theran pastor and began preaching there, and in 
1745 he arranged to hold a large conference of Mo- 
ravians at Lancaster. In 1746 the Moravian party 
at Tulpehocken dedicated their new free-stone 
church, erected in place of their old frame building. 
Spangenberg performed the ceremony of dedica- 
tion. In April, 1745, the Moravian church in Hei- 
delberg township was consecrated, but two years 
later there was a difficulty in regard to a burial that 
injured it very much, and caused Weiser to advise 
the Lutherans to take possession of it.* George 
Loesch, near Womelsdorf, had become Moravian 
in 1747. Conrad Weiser had been leaning that way, 
although on April 22, 1745, Henry Melchoir Muh- 
lenberg, the patriarch of the Lutheran Church, was 
married to Weiser's daughter at Tulpehocken,** and 
now Peter Kucher, the Lutheran blacksmith, whose 
house was a stopping place for the itinerant Moravian 
missionaries,*** cast in his lot with the fol- 
lowers of Zinzendorf and became a pil- 
lar unto them at Hebron. This was during 
the visitation of John and Joseph**** in 
Heidelberg. In 1748 a Moravian Synod was 
held on the Quitopahila "in the Lutheran church," 

•See Lutheran Church Review. 

•*We have seen that In 1747 Weiser advised the Lutherans to occupy 
the Heidelberg: buildlngr. In 1748 Weiser was absent on a government 
expedition and penetrated the unknown country as far West as the 
Ohio. 

•♦• See Bishop Camerhoff's Narative. Egle's History of Lebanon county 
p .20. 

♦♦••Bishop Spangenberg. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 33 

and the Moravian communions were held in the 
same building from January ist, 1750, when 23 
persons communed. In 1750 Peter Kucher do- 
nated the land for the old Hebron Moravian church, 
now on Mr. Daniel Folmer's property, and for the 
cemetery. The building was erected that year, and 
the little community at Hebron became by all odds 
the most substantial and flourishing settlement on 
the Quitopahila. It was to meet with a formida- 
ble rival. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE TOWN OF STEITZ.' 




HE little German hamlet 
on the Quitopahila was of 
gradual growth. Log 
houses sprang up, in spots 
and clusters, in several 
quarters. Walnut street, 
Old Cumberland street. 
Willow street, near 
Tenth, and Willow 
street, near Seventh,** were among the earliest 
settlements. The land and property develop- 
ment of the original town has never been thor- 
oughly followed up,*** or described in a historical 
way, though the manner in which the property in- 
terests arose and expanded does not seem difficult 
to grasp. 

Let us begin at the extreme east. Our readers 
will remember Peter Kucher, on the Quitopahila. 
His land probably extended from Hebron westward 
to Front street along the creek. At Front street 
John Light's land began and extended westward 



♦The founder of Lebanon spelled his name "Stits" and "Stites." 

♦•Called "The Goose Corner." 

♦♦♦The late Adam Grlttinger, surveyor, father of Mr. H. C. Grittingrer 
and Mrs. John K. Funck, was probobly the best informed man nn these 
questions that Lebanon county has had. Mrs. Funck very kindly placed 
her father's papers at my disposal and a fresh examination of these and 
other old documents has brought many facts to light. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 3^ 

to Seventh street.* At Seventh street Steitz's land 
began, and on it the old tow^n proper was laid out. 
This land extended west of Seventh street, through 
the heart of the town to Steitz's homestead, at 
Meadow Bank, and the settlement at Old Cum- 
berland street, and it reached probably from Lo- 
cust street on the south, to Church street on the 
north.** There were outlying lots laid out earlier 
than the town lots. These were probably the Rey- 
nolds' tract, lying southwest of Steitz's farm and 
adjoining it. Beginning at the west of Old Cum- 
berland street, this tract would include the stretch 
along the ridge, to the west and south, taking in 
Donaghmore, the Hammond mansion and Pleasant 
Hill. If the theory is correct, here was the land 
of the original Reynolds,* the first layer out of lots 
in the whole vicinity. We know that this Francis 
Reynolds had married Catherine Steitz, and he 
may have been the brother-in-law of Steitz.** Their 
farms adjoined. Very naturally, moreover, Steitz's 
daughter came to marry neighbor Reynolds' son 
George.*** This occurred already in 1731, fifteen 

•This paxt of L/ebanon was not developed early. It is within the mem- 
ory of inhabitants still living that the fields began a,t Sixth and Cumber- 
land streets. 

♦♦Here it met the tract sold by Caspar Wistar as early as 1738 to John 
Licht. Rupp, in his History of Lebanon County, p. 304. says that the 
deed describes the southern boundary of this farm, "South by Geoge 
Steitz's settlement." He says further that in 1742 John Licht erected 
his massive three-story house with a hipped roof, and that the Mennon- 
ites in some numbers held a regular monthly meeting here for worship. 

♦Francis. 

♦♦On Dec. 12, 1738, Rev. Stoever married Francis Reynolds and Elenora 
Thistle. Was this Reynold's second wife? 

♦♦♦Though they may have been cousins. 



^5 THE TOWN OF STEITZ. 

years before old Reynolds died, and 36 years before 
old Steitz died. Young George Reynolds* not only 
inherited his father's property, but seems to have 
been in the good graces of Stites and later on in 
accord with the latter's land projects, for he, more 
than any other person, is called on to be the wit- 
ness to the Stites deeds. * 

This George seems to have laid out a portion of 
his farm in town lots before 1740. His father 
Francis died in 1745, leaving his estate to his son. 
In 1750 old George Stites himself seems to have 
caught the land-development fever, and he laid out 
additional lots. * By 1753 he, in some way, had 
probably come into possession of most of the Rey- 
nolds' lots and in this same year he had two ad- 
ditional large tracts of land granted to him by one 
patent from the proprietaries of Pennsylvania.** 

Just at this juncture the general condition of af- 
fairs in the State grew to be extraordinary, and as 
it is quite likely that the budding little town was 
prevented from going into sudden blossom by this 
general situation, it will be well to refer to these 
events briefly. 

The years 1751 and 1752 were very prosperous 



*I feel confident that the land warrants in Taylor's Surveys show that 
George Reynolds also bought land In the Swatara by or before this 
time. 

In 1742 Rev. Stoever baptized Brldgitte, a daughter of John Reynolds, 
at Swatara. Francis Reynolds was one of the sponsors. 

**He may have been named "George" after George Stites. 

♦The township, according' to Rupp, contained nearly 150 taxables in this 
year, 

♦His previous grants of land be had received in 1734 and later. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 37 

in Pennsylvania and this fact must have tended to 
help land speculation and new settlements along. 
The wheat and the other grain harvests were ex- 
ceedingly fruitful. The exports of the State in- 
creased, and men felt more reckless in making in- 
vestments.* A much-needed improvement to the 
whole Lebanon region was begun. A road to Lan- 
caster, the county-seat, was laid out. This road was 
the present Ninth street.** 

The year following, things seemed still to be well. 
Conrad Weiser was looking after general interests 
and peace by uniting the friendly Indians into a 
strong alliance against the French and hostile In- 
dians that were threatening Pennsylvania. But in 
1755 the whole interior of the State was startled by 
the news of Braddock's defeat at Fort Du Quesne. 
In the beginning of October (the 6th) news came 
to the Hebron Moravian chronicler that over 20 
persons had been killed in our region by the In- 
dians, and four days later he adds that the com- 
munity has been in alarm for a fortnight. The Swa- 
tara region was in great danger. On November 



♦The Chronicler of the convent of the Seventh Day Baptists at 
Ephrata says that "men, in wanton carelessness sought to waste 
the supply. For they used the precious wheat— which might have 
supported many poor and needy people— to fatten hogs, which afterward 
they lavishly consumed. Besides, distilleries were erected everywhere, 
and thus this great blessing used for the manufacture of strong drink, 
gave rise to much disorder." Muhlenberg in a letter of 1754 says Pennsyl- 
vania "teems with a wicked, frivolous rabble and vagabond preachers 
and students." 

♦♦About this time Christopher Embich arrived in the new neigh- 
borhood. He left Rotterdam in the spring of 1752, and arrived in Phila- 
delphia on September 27 of the same year, on the "Nancy." He made 
his way to Hinkletown, Lancaster county, where he married Maria Eliza- 
beth Kriter, and came from thence to Lebanon township. 



38 



THE TOWN OF STEITZ. 



ly, the chronicler says: ''Visited brother and sister 
Lesher. In the evening our neighbor, Weidman, 
and his tenant fled with ten children. The Indians 
have again burned four plantations and use the 
people in a cruel and barbarous manner." On De- 
cember 7, eleven were murdered and the damages 
caused by the burning of property was estimated 
at £1,500. On Christmas day the Hebron brethren 
decided that a guard (two miles long and one mile 
broad) should be set out at night, under the care 
of Kucher and Hetrich. Balthazar Orth was to 
look after his neighborhood and arrangements were 
made to house some of the fleeing Swatara families. 
Peter Roesser and Stephen Nicholas bound them- 
selves to leave home and build fortifications. Two 
days later Kucher, Heckedorn and the neighbors 
cut down the woods at the Hebron church, and 
two days later still the lower windows and doors of 
the building were closed half way up with heavy 
wood. It was understood that the church or 
Kucher's mill would be the neighbors' place of re- 
treat. 

Meantime Governor Morris had reported in No- 
vember that the Indians had ''entered the passes 
of the Blue Mountains, broke into the counties of 
Lancaster [Lebanon], Berks and Northampton 
counties, committing murder, devastations and 
other kinds of horrid mischief." On January 7th, 
1756, the Governor himself came on through He- 
bron from Philadelphia with 12 gentlemen, an es- 
cort of 70 men, and 30 additional guards. He was 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 



39 



on his way to the Susquehanna to make peace with 
the Indians. In February, Bethel and Hanover 
called upon the Quitopahila for help and all the men 
in Lebanon township came together at Kucher's 
for consultation. It was resolved to send ten men 
to Bethel and ten to Hanover, and that each party 
should be relieved every two weeks and should sup- 
ply themselves with provisions. Meantime families 
with ten wagons fled from the Swatara and Tulpe- 
hocken to Lebanon. In May, 1756, there was an- 
other Indian outbreak and on the i6th of the same 
month, 1757, six persons were murdered at the Swa- 
tara. Five of the corpses were brought over to our 
community and the afifair must have created great 
excitement. On May 20 the chronicler reports: 
''It has become pretty populous about us. A good 
piece along the Swatara all have fled." On the 6th 
of June an Indian was seen way down in Grubeland, 
two miles from the church, in the act of breaking 
open the door with his tomahawk. Two days later 
the Indians killed a man five miles from Balthazar 
Orth's and captured a boy. On the 21st, 14 of them 
had a battle with 30 soldiers eight or nine miles over 
the Swatara. The people there were again afraid to 
take in their hay and grain, but succeeded in doing 
so with fifteen men. 

The little Steitz village on the Quitopahila was 
not disturbed, and the threatened danger in the 
outlying regions perhaps operated to bring new set- 
tlers to the place. But the Tulpehocken suffered 
greatly. The story of Regina, the German captive. 



40 



THE TOWN OF STEITZ. 



dates from these days. She was carried off in i755- 
In all this danger and distress the Quaker Assem- 
bly in Philadelphia remained indifferent. It was 
left to the Germans and the Scotch-Irish to become 
the defenders of the State. Benjamin Franklin, af- 
ter he could not move the Quakers, put himself at 
the head of a regiment of Germans, and the Gov- 
ernor gave Conrad Weiser a colonel's commission. 
Weiser organized a regiment out of German farm- 
ing material. He sent for the Lutheran pastor 
Kurtz, and after a prayer and an exhortation to the 
men by the pastor, Weiser led them toward the 
Susquehannah, despatching about fifty of them 
north to hold Swatara gap. Forts were established 
all along the line from the Susquehannah to the 
Delaware, about twelve miles apart. Soon terrible 
tidings came. The Indians broke in on the Mora- 
vians in Bethel in 1756 and 1757, and massacred 
them,* The settlers near the Blue Mountains re- 
moved to Reading, and some of those in Reading 
removed toward Philadelphia.** As stated above, 
these troubles probably both retarded and also 
helped to make the settlement of Steitz more of a 
centre, and now in 1756, the various lots that had 
been laid out were brought together into a complete 
town plan.* 

♦See "Parthemore's Trip into the Swatara Reg-ion," p. 18. 

**See Dr. Schantz's Sesqui -Centennial Discourse on Christ Church, 
Tulpehocken, p. 14. 

♦At least this would hajmonize the statement of the Rev. Dr. George 
Loeiunann with the other sources. 
What Dr. Lochinami 1ms written is a paragraph in an article of his en- 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 4 1 

Under such conditions of general excitement, 
perhaps not very much could be done on a syste- 
matic scale in 1755, or even in 1756 and 1757, in the 
new Stites-Town project. George Stites himself was 
undoubtedly the active spirit in the movement. It 
was he who laid out and sold the lots for our town 
of Lebanon. He planned streets and alleys at reg- 
ular intervals, and gave his lots a frontage of 66 
feet and a depth of 192 feet, and arranged such con- 
ditions of payment and of erecting buildings as are 
described hereafter."^ There were three lots in 
every half square. In selling the lots he made it one 
of the conditions that a substantial house not less 
than sixteen feet square must be built on it within 
eighteen months, more or less, from the time of 
purchase. These houses were built of logs, but each 
house must have a brick or stone chimney. In the 
spring and summer of 1756- 1758, he may have 
staked out a large number of properties and sold 
single lots here and there to parties desiring to 
build. In 1758, if not earlier, he was ready to 



titled, "Nachricht von Gemeinen" in the first volume of the "Evagel- 
isches Magazin, unter der Aufsicht der Deutsch-Evangelisch-Luther- 
ischen Synode, Philadelpia. Gedruckt bey Conrad Zentler, In der 
Zweiten Strasze, unterhalb der Rehs— Strasze 1812. p. 20, 

As we shall have occasion to make use of his statement on several 
occasions, we >?ive an exact translation of it here: "The Lebanon 
congregation holds its service in the Salem Church, which is built in 
the town of Lebanon. This town was laid out in the, year 1756, by 
George Steitz, and lies on the stream C^uitapahila, (an Indian name, 
which in German means Schlangen-Loch), 25 miles northwest of Lancas- 
ter and 28 miles west of Reading. At first the inhabitaJits belonged 
partly to the Bergkirche, and partly to the Gruppenkirch (a small log 
church situated a mile and a half south of Lebanon, but now dllapi- 



42 THE TOWN OF STEITZ. 

grant deeds to his purchasers. The deeds are 
printed in good and full form on substantial paper 
and at least a numeber of them are probably filled in 
in Stites' own handwriting.* They were doubtless 

/^^ drawn up and printed in Lancaster. Many 
' ^ '' justice and witnessed in Lebanon. Stites 

Autograph of the Pounder f . . . 111 iti 

of Lebanon. of thcm are signed, sealed by the Lebanon 
himself in these deeds calls the name of the place 
Stites-town,* although he leaves a blank space be- 
fore the printed word "Stites," which may be a pro- 
vision in the blanks for a contemplated change of 
name. On May 15th, 1758, he made an Indenture 
for a lot he had sold on the corner of Ninth and 
Willow streets to Charles Sholly. It was between 
"George Stites of the Township of Lebanon . . . 
gentleman, of the one part, and Charles Sholly of 
the same township in the other part." In it Stites 
"doth . . . sell ... all that certain lot . . . in a 
certain town there laid out and called Stites-Town, 
... on a street in the Plan of the said Town, called 
Market street." Here the name "Stites-Town" 
still occurs in his deed, but just two months later, on 



dated. On account of the Increasing growth of the number of church 
members, a house was hired in the town, In order to be able to hold 
service there; but as this also became too small, a rather roomy log 
church was built under the superintendence of Pastor Stoever, and it 
was dedicated in the year 1766. This congrregation was served from time 
to time by the pastors, Stoever, F, A. Muhlenberg, E. Schulze, and 
W. Kurz." 

♦The writer has examined over a hundred of the original Lebanon deeds 
and gone through them in detail. 

♦This is denied in Dr. Egle's History of Lebanon cotmity, but the early 
deeds prove the fact. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 43 

July 15, he made a deed to Jacob Focht for lot 113, 
the one next to the Farmer's Hotel, at Tenth and 
Cumberland streets, in which "Stites," in the word 
''Stites-Town," is scratched with a pen, and the word 
"Lebanon" is written in in the blank space pre- 
ceding it. Subsequent to this time the deeds read 
"Lebanon/' The year 1759 was a busy year for 
Stites and his little town, and at this time he gave 
deeds for many of the most valuable and prominent 
sites in the place. The lot diagonally opposite the 
Farmer's Flotel, where Charles B. Rauch now re- 
sides, he deeded to George Beetrich. This was evi- 
dently the year in which the lots along Eighth 
street were sold. The corner lot, with the old house 
on it, belonging to Geo. Krause & Co., was deeded 
by Stites to Martin Light on February 28, 1759. 
The witnesses to this transaction were George Rey- 
nolds and two others who signed their names in 
German, 

It was numbered lot 54. No. 53, the lot on which 
Boger's Drug Store now stands, was also sold 
shortly afterward by Stites to Martin Light. On 
the 4th of March Stites sold the lot at Eighth and 
Willow streets, where John Henry Miller's property 
now stands, just opposite the Salem church, on 



44 



THE TOWN OF STEITZ. 



Willow street, to George Hats.* Less than a week 
later John Huber buys from Stites lot No. 48, 
where the Court House now is, at a rent of six shil- 
lings annually.** Not so long afterward this Court 
House lot came into the possession of Jacob Stieb, 
one of the first members of Salem church. Lot No. 
47, the central one on the Court House block, was 
sold to Philip Gloninger, and with lot 46, was fi- 
nally sold to Charles Greenwald and the County 
Commissioners.* In this same year lots No. 28, 
29 and 30, beginning at Eighth and Cumberland 
streets, and running from the Central Hotel and 
First National Bank to the hardware store, Stites 
sold to Jacob Shofner.** Lot No. 27, further down, 
was sold to Peter Biecher. The P. O. S. of A. Hall 
property, on the opposite side of the street, Stites 
sold in the same year to Philip Ollinger.* Lots No. 
31 and 32, now the properties of Dr. Mease and 
the Colonial Hotel were also sold this year.** On 
the loth of July Stites sold a property on the west 

♦Fourteen years earlier, on the 18th of August, 1745, Rev. Stoever 
baptized a daughter of George Hats, John Adam Hambrecht and wife 
being sponsors. 

This lot has had quite a history. The deed was witnessed by George 
Reynolds, Thomas Clark and Christian Gish. It was subsequently as- 
signed to Emanuel Harmen, John Snee, Sr., Conrad Reinoehl, Christopher 
Embich and George Heass. In 1864 and '65 the old log house on the 
property, occupied by a maiden lady named Henrietta Gabel, was still 
in possession of the Heass family, whose descendants, I believe, resided 
in Germantown. 

**The witnesses to the deed were George Reynolds, John Scull and 
Jasper Scull. 

•The deed is thus endorsed. 

**They were transferred later to Philip Geenwald and Jacob Bushong. 

♦This property was then assigned to Christian Spade, and George 
Miller in 1762; then to Philip Fimsler, unto Nicolaus Grebhart, to 
Christopher Waltz. 

♦♦They were subsequently transferred to Fred. Yensel and to Frederick 
Embich, both old Lutherans. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 45 

side of Eig-hth street, between Chestnut and Wal- 
nut, to Joseph Trout.* On the third of August he 
gave a deed for lot No. 20, opposite the Salem prop- 
erty, on Eighth street, on which the brick Bowman 
building now stands, to Adam Ekard.** 

In 1760, not earlier, Mr. Stites realized the ne- 
cessity of providing the town with facilities for re- 
ligious worship, and in this year he gave lots of 
ground to the present Salem Lutheran and the Old 
Reformed church, as we shall see hereafter. On the 
loth of March, 1760, he also gave deed for lot 95 
to Peter Shofe,* and at this time or earlier 
he gave Hennerich Raade one of the lots that con- 
stitutes a part of the Salem church property 
He further sold lot No. 9 to David Beecker.** No. 
5, the property at Seventh and Chestnut streets,* 
he also sold at this tim.e, and on the loth of August 
Michael Ensminger bought a lot from him. 

The following year brought the beginning of a 
great change in the ownership of the unsold Leb- 
anon lands. On the 19th of January, 1761, George 
Stites granted the two tracts of land for which he 

•He sold It to Samuel Meyley and It then oame into the ownership of 
Emanuel Meyley. 

•♦This deed was transferred to Benjamin Spiecker, to Christopher Uhler, 
to the Township of Lebanon. 

•Signed and sealed in presence of John Scull, George Reynold and 
Jacob Vogt. 

♦•This lot Is a part of the property on Willow street near Eighth, lately 
owned by John H. Hoffer, and for many years used as a private academy 
for the town, and subsequently for the Girls' High School. The deed 
of this lot has the signatures of Stites, Reynolds and Trotter. 

•The old Shame and probably the Woomer property. 



46 THE TOWN OF STEITZ. 

had received a patent from the proprietaries in 1753 
to his grandson. He gave it in fee for the yearly 
rent of four shilHngs.* At this point the Stites' 
deeds stop and the George Reynold's** deeds be- 
gin. These Reynolds' deeds are printed on parch- 
ment and are well executed and legible today yet. 
On the 1 6th of May, 1761, we find Reynolds selling 
a lot of four perches on Walnut street to Felix Mil- 
ler. On the 25th of June he sells lot 273 to Chris- 
topher Embich.* On the 13th of May, 1762, he 
sold lot II, in the neighborhood of Frantz's furni- 
ture rooms and Mrs. John Weimer's residence to 
Peter Schindel. He also sold No. 33, the northeast 
corner of Eighth and Chestnut streets, at this 
time.** 

There are several essential features in the found- 
ing of Lebanon by Steitz and Reynolds that de- 
serve consideration. The first is that the town was 
not a gradual growth on irregular natural lines, but 
that it was laid out in streets, alleys and lots, of reg- 
ular proportions, and in rectangular plan from the 
very start. Hence Lebanon has none of those 

♦The lot deeds now read, — "Being a part of the tract of 365 3-4 acres, 
■which George Stits. grandfather of George Reynolds, by his deed dated 
the 19th of January, 1761, and granted to the said George Reynolds In 
fee, for the yearly rent of four shillings." Why the transfer was made, 
we do not know. 

**In 1760 George Reynolds was married to Eleonora, daughter of Robert 
and Maria Trotter. She was bom on the 13th of October, 1736, and was 
baptized and confirmed. She had one child who married Thomas Clark. 
She died on June 30, 1798, a few weeks after the present Salem Church 
was dedicated, at the age of 61 years, 8 months and 2 weeks. Salem 
Church Record. She is buried in Salem graveyard. 

♦*This deed is endorsed on the back by Woolrick (sic) Shnavely, Henry 
Reinail, Matthais Reinhardt, 

♦This lot was assigned on Dec. 21, 1762, to Frederick Yensel, a member 
of the Lutheran church. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 47 

crooked winding ways, and very few diagonal 
streets, such as are found in towns of gradual and 
unplanned growth. Another point is that the orig- 
inal plan was drawn on ample and generous lines by 
its founder. Though the streets are not as wide 
as they might have been made, yet Steitz placed 
only three lots in a half square and gave each of 
the lots the full depth of a half square. A third im- 
portant point is that the sale of all the lots was on 
the ground-rent plan. The indentures or ^'deeds'' 
were in reality an agreement on the part of Stites 
to sell the lot, and on the part of the purchaser to 
pay a yearly rental, generally of five shillings, and 
to put up a proper building on the lot within the 
space of a year or a year and a half. This last pro- 
vision tended to some extent to prevent property 
speculation, and to secure substantial progress in 
the building of the town. The ground-rent feature 
had one advantage for the purchaser.* It enabled 
a settler with a small amount of capital to become 
the owner of a house of his own more readily than 
would have been possible if he had been obliged to 
purchase the lot outright. But we shall see that 
the plan did not benefit the founders of the town, 
who went into bankruptcy, and many of the lot 
owners themselves found the plan unsatisfactory 
and secured release of the ground-rent and clear 
title by buying in the rights of the original owners. 
Other ground rents are still collected today. 

•Those of the Penn land warrants which I have examined (In possess- 
ion of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania) are sales on the same 
plan. 



48 THE TOWN OF STEITZ. 

If we could see the little village at the period of 
which we are speaking, we would find it to consist of 
five or six clusters of houses, perhaps fifty or more 
in all, with some scattering buildings in between, 
and with a large yard at the side and in the rear. 
Each house was a substantial log building "of the 
dimensions of sixteen feet square at the least," and 
was obliged to have "a good chimney of brick or 
stone, to be laid in or built with lime and sand."* 
Gradually, back of the house there would be built 
a bake-oven, perhaps a wash-house and a smoke- 
house, and on the rear of the lot a stable for cows, 
if not for horses, and a pig-sty. There would also 
be a large wood-pile, a vegetable garden, and some- 
times a potato patch upon each property. This was 
a long step in advance of the period thirty years 
earlier, when Michael Borst built his cabin in the 
wilderness, drank his water and milk out of a cala- 
bash, and as his first occupation every morning 
went out of his door and killed snakes.** 



♦Requirement in the deed. 



♦♦Rupp's History of Lebanon county. Rupp makes it still worse. He 
says, p. 304, that "Burst's first work in the morning was to kill snakes 
in and outside of the hut." 



CHAPTER IX. 



HOW SALEM CONGREGATION SPRANG UP. 




HE origin of the Salem 
church in the little hamlet 
on the Quitopahila dates 
back into the fifties of the 
last century, if not earUer. 
The statements and facts 
customarily presented in 
regard to it are so partial 
as to be misleading, and 
we have found the subject to be one most difficult 
of investigation. 

Whether the congregation was organized origin- 
ally by Pastor Stoever or by laymen who desired 
service to be held at the Quitopahila itself; whether 
its material was connected with that of the Grube 
church or not; where it worshiped, when it held its 
first election for officers and its first service, are all 
matters involved in obscurity. 

The Rev. J. W. Early of Reading believes that 
by comparing baptisms of Nov. 7, 1752, (p. 27), 
with a number on page 47 and p. 54 of the Record, 
that the existence of a Lebanon congregation can 
be inferred as early as 1752. It is certain, at least 
that the Steitz deeds, in bounding contiguous 
properties, recognize the existence of the German 



50 



HOIV SALEM SPRANG UP 



Lutheran church in Lebanon as early as 1760,* 
and that in this year it had two trustees and 
owned a part of its present property. We know also 
that a delegate from the Lebanon congregation at- 
tended the dedication of Trinity church, Lancaster, 
in 1 76 1. We know further that the next year, in 
June, 1762, the Lebanon congregation sent a del- 
egate all the way to Philadelphia to a meeting of 
Synod which was held there.** Moreover at this 
meeting, the Ministerium considered the reception 
of five new congregations, of which Lebanon is the 
first one alluded to. The Lebanon congregation 
had sent in a petition to the Ministerium and its 
delegate, Mr. Rade, had taken the long journey, 
no doubt, to see what action the Ministerium would 
take on the petition.* But the church that had thus 
appealed to Synod in 1762, found itself, with the 
whole of Lebanon, in a very different situation in 
1763, and it was not till 1765 that its land for build- 



♦•"Doctunentary History of The Bvangellcel Lutheran Ministerium, 
1748-1821. Phllaxlelphla. 1898," p. 60. 

•Documentary History of the Ministerium, p. 64. The exact language 
(In a report to the Halle Fathers) is as follows: "As to the reception of 
new oongreg^ations, there were the following: 1.— Lebanon, whose peti- 
tion to the United Preachers was read from a letter by Rev. Kurtz, 
Sr." It would be moat interesting for us to know the contents of that 
petition, and to learn whether the Tulpehocken pastor, Rev. Kurtz, Sr., 
was not himself the original moving cause, or at least the encouraging 
spirit in the orgaunization of the congregation, and whether it was 
done againjBt the wish and desire of Rev, Stoever. Rev. Muhlenberg 
admits in another place without stating where or when or how that 
Pastor Kurtz, Sr., had interfered in Pastor Stoever' s field without 
proper authority. Pastor Kurtz, Sr., was one of the best pastors the 
church had in that day, and was the first minister ordained by the 
Ministerium. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. gj 

ing was again secure, and it was only in 1766 that 
a building was erected.* Before going into detail 
on this point, it will be well for us to have two other 
matters in view. The one is the church building 
situation in Pennsylvania at this time, and the other 
is the life and work of Pastor Stoever in these days. 

♦Even this date is three or four years earlier than historians (except 
Dr. Lochmann, who endorses it) hitherto have assigmed to the building, 
because they knew nothing of the circumstances described above and to 
be narrated hereafter and assumed that the petition signed by the 
members and justice* of 1768 preceded all building operations. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE FIRST CHURCH LOT. 







ERMAN towns in Pennsyl- 
vania were growing rap- 
idly in the middle of the 
last century. More than 
12,000 emigrants from 
the Fatherland had ar- 
rived in the single sum- 
mer and fall of 1749. 
(Among these was George 
Henry Reinoehl, whose second son John George 
was born in Lebanon, July 10, 1752.*) And already 
in 1748 Lancaster had 400 houses, and the Luther- 
an minister's parochial school was crowded.** In 
this year Muhlenberg organized the Ministerium of 
Pennsylvania and new churches were being built in 
many towns. The grand St. Michael's church in 
Philadelphia was being dedicated. The Lancaster 
church*** had been dedicated in 1747. The Tulpe- 

•Gf«orfire Henry Reinoehl, emigrated with his wife, a Swablan, from 
Wurtembergr, Germany, arrivlngr at Philadelphia November 9, 1749, on the 
ship "Good Intent." He was a French Hugenot, having fled from France 
upon the revoc«.tlon of the Kdict of Nantes. He settled in Lebanon town- 
ship, then Lancaster county, becoming a naturaliaed subject of Greet 
Britain In 1761. He had four sons, Henry, John George, Conrad and 
Christopher, the eldest being born in Germany. John George Reinoehl 
the second son, was bom July 10, 1752, in Lebanon where he died in 



••Even English and Irish parents applied to have their children ad- 
mitted to the school. 

•••The one preceding the present Trinity ediflee. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 53 

hocken and Bernville churches had been built a few 
years earHer. The Germantown church was dedi- 
cated in 1752. And nearer at hand the Ziegel 
church at Swatara was being built in 1754. 

Though the church-going people in little Leb- 
anon probably were in the habit of attending ser- 
vices in the Hill and Grube churches at this period, 
yet the fact that the Moravian church at Hebron, 
new and built of stone, was about three times as 
near to the town as the Hill church, and was in the 
centre of a settlement, and had pious brethren ac- 
tive there constantly, and very frequent services, 
would naturally operate to draw church-goers to 
Hebron rather than to the Hill or the Grube-land. 
It would be difficult, especially for the women and 
children to walk all the way out to the Hill church 
in winter weather. Besides this, as we have seen, 
the Indian troubles were now^ coming on and by 
1755 people must have felt very uneasy when trav- 
eling in the country.* 

October 19, 1832, leavinff the foUowingr sons: Geoge Henry, Michael Hen- 
ry, John, Christopher, Tobias, Philip and Jacob. He owned nearly all 
the town-lots In the southern portion of the present borough of Lebanon, 
which werre divided at his death, among his children, some of whom 
emigrated In the west. Those remaining were George Henry, Jacob, 
Tobias and Christopher. George H. Relnoehl was bom November 11, 
1775, and died May 10, 1852. He was a blacksmith by trade and followed 
that occupation a number of years siibsequently engaging in farming in 
Lebanon township. He was a prominent man in his day, active and 
zealous In school and church affairs. His children were Samuel; George 
rtsldlng In Minnesota; Helena married John Marquart; and Mary mai- 
ried John Yorty. The Reinoehl family in our congregation are deacend- 
ents of Samuel. 

•Even the meetings of the Synod of Pennsylvania were Interrupted 
from 17EB to 176» on account of this difficulty and danger In traveling. 



54 



THE FIRST CHURCH LOT 



Under such circumstances, especially as the Lu- 
therans were increasing in the town, it would be 
quite natural either that the Rev. Mr. Stoever, who 
lived at Sunnyside, should come in and preach for 
them, or that they themselves should decide to be- 
gin services* as best they could. ''On account of 
the increasing growth of the number of church 
members," says Dr. Lochmann, "a house was hired 
in the town, in order to be able to hold service 
there." None can say in what year this house-ser- 
vice began. It probably was Mr. Steitz who pre- 
sented the congregation with their lot of ground, at 
least as early as 1760. 

At that time, and how much earlier we do not 
know, the congregation must have had lots Nos. 40 
and 41, each of a depth of 192 feet and of a width 
of 66 feet.** These lots were on what is now called 
Willow street, between the alley and the present 
church building. They ran in depth toward the 
Embich property. On the lower corner of the lot 
on which the church now stands, next to the home 
of J. J. Embich was an old log building fitted out as 
a school house, which may have been there before 
1760 and used as a place of worship.*** The corner 



♦As the Rieth's church people had decided to do already in 1727. 

•♦The quarter of deed of Stits to John Henry Raade, in my possession, 
proves this with reference to Lot 41. 

♦♦♦The statement that the old school house was built by the congreg-atlon 
about 1766, is based on the phrase "having lately boug-ht a school-house." 
(Petition of 1768) which perhaps does not refer to this building, 
which the congregation bought, not built. If there were two schoolhouses, 
the second one was on the comer where the church now stands, and 
was the last to be acquired, and the first to be remove<i. The fir»t 
schoolhouse seems originally to have been a two-story dwelling house. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. ^^ 

lot, fronting along Eighth street, and on which the 
church now stands, was owned at this time by John 
Henry Raade,* the same Mr. Raade who went to 
Synod as the delegate of the congregation in 1762. 
I have just discovered the original Reynolds' deed 
made May 20, 1762, to Henry Rawdy, Butcher, in 
which lot No. 42 is ''beginning at a post in front on 
a street called Water street and from thence four 
perches to a post. Thence along the Lutherian 
Church Lot twelve perches in depth to a lot taken 
up by Peter Swope, thence along the same four 
perches to a post, a corner of said lot, and from 
thence along another street called Walnut street 12 
perches to a post, it being the place of beginning." 
This deed is in the church's possession. On the 
outside it is endorsed by a later, but last century 
hand, "3s. 4d. sterl. The Lutheran School House 
Lot." 

The line, in modern terms, began at a post at 
8th and Willow Sts. and ran 66 feet along Willow to 
a post. There it met the Lutheran Church Lot and 

not such a building as a congregation at this period would erect, and 
it is possible that the property and building were presented or bought 
and used for service before 1760, when, we know, the congregation 
owned the property. The Halle Reports, Vol. II, p. 432, show that 
the congregation had no school house for school purposes in 1760. 

The Reports are speaking of the flourishing schools in the congregation 
of the Synod, including Philadelphia, the well-ordered school of eighty or 
more in Reading, a school of forty in Stouchsburg, of thirty in Heidel- 
berg, and of eighty or ninety in Lancaster. They state that in Bemville 
William Kurtz (Salem's future pastor) was teaching a school of thirty 
children, which then grew smaller on account of the high waters. 
The Reports then say that "in Letjenon there are as yet no schools be- 
cause of the poverty of the people." 

*See SUtes' deed to Raade, 1760. 



56 



THE FIRST CHURCH LOT 



ran back twelve perches along the Lutheran lot to 
the Embich property, then 66 feet along the Em- 
bich property to Eighth St., and up Eighth to Wil- 
low. 

This shows plainly that in 1762 the lots ran north 
and south in this block, and not east and west, as 
they are marked out on the Stoever, Lehman, Grit- 
tinger plan of the town. 

After 1760, and no doubt before 1763, John 
Henry Rahdey made over to Philip Fernsler and 
Michael Rieter this Willow street lot. No. 42, in 
trust for "the German Lutheran congregation, set- 
tled, founded and established in that part of the 
country where the hereby sold . . . premises is sit- 
uated and for no other . . . purpose whatsoever 
forever."* 

The First Reformed church of Lebanon also re- 
ceived its lot in 1760 by an original Steitz deed and 
by 1762 it had built a small log church upon the 
ground.** In July, 1761, the Moravians, no doubt, 
stirred up by the activity of Stites, "surveyed and 
laid out a town on a tract of fifty acres, on the south 



•See deed or counterpart of deed in my possession. This deed was 
rescued from an old barrel in a garret in Lebanon several weeks ago. 
Its upp>er part and a small section below (containing^ the trustees' signa- 
tures) are lacking. The mice may have gnawed the time-stained docu- 
ment. The deed is countersigned thus: "Deed in Trust Mr. John Henry 
Rahdey to Messrs. Philip Fernsler and Michael Rieder, 2 of the Trustees 
to the German Lutheran congregation for Lot No. 42 In the town of 
Lebanon." 

**In 1760 George Steitz, gentleman, "well regarding the advance- 
ment of true religion and piety," gave this "Dutch Presbyterian" con- 
gregation (as he calls it) its lot of ground for a church and for burial 
purposes. The lot was eight perches on Hill street, thence along 
Strawberry alley, thence along Partridge alley (See Dr. Klopp's History 
of Tabor First Reformed Church, p. 10). The deed was not acknowledged 
however, until August 21, 1764. It is the old burial ground site. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 



57 



side of the Quittopehella creek, . . . which they 
called Hebron." Hebron was never built; instead, 
the name was given to a large stone building oc- 
cupied as a chapel.* 

The years 1 760-1768 were the difficult years of 
the first building period of our congregation, and 
what the fathers did and failed to do in a small way 
in those first years, was a harbinger of similar 
prolonged attempts in after times. And even at the 
end of that first period, and for years afterward 
they were only half done with their work.** In 1760 
the delegate who gave one of the lots saw the new 
St. Michael's, in Philadelphia; in 1761 delegates saw 
the Trinity church in Lancaster, and in 1766 they 
saw the new Zion church in Philadelphia,*** and 
the building of a church was undoubtedly in the 
minds of the people at this time. 

•Editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine of History in an article in 1894 
in which part of the Hebron diary, during the Revolutionary period, la 
translated. 

**The congrreg-ation seems to have been building in some small and long- 
drawn-out way through a great part of the thirty-year period after 1760. 
It was a wise conclusion to which it came in 1796, to resolve to put up 
a buUdine of the right kind. 

♦♦♦This latter building was the largest and handsomest church In the 
land at the time and one of its finest specimens of colonial architec- 
ture. 




CHAPTER XL 

STOEVER IN MIDDLE AGE AND THE TOWN OF 
LEBANON. 

N 1764 the Rev. Mr. 
Stoever was about 57 
years old. For thirty- 
five years, winter and 
summer, he had traveled 
as a missionary through 
the pathless wilderness. 
In 1750 he had passed 
^'^ through a severe illness 
and was unable to speak and almost unconscious 
for nearly a week. At that time he was still serv- 
ing five or six congregations and as he was pretty 
well to do, he did not need much support from 
them. He had passed through some severe ex- 
periences. His industry was untiring, but he 
seems to have been somewhat haughty, deter- 
mined and independent, and very rough and vio- 
lent in his manner. His actions in connection with 
the Tulpehocken quarrels did not commend them- 
selves to Muhlenberg. In May, 1750, Muhlenberg, 
who had gone to Lancaster to attend the wedding 
of Rev. Handschuh, unexpectedly met Pastor Stoe- 
ver, and Stoever told him that his sickness had 
made him thoughtful and repentant and had 
brought about a change in him. Muhlenberg 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 



59 



then asked him whether he would not join the 
Ministerium of Pennsylvania, which had been or- 
ganized several years before. In the end Stoever 
did. The President of Synod and all the mem- 
from Muhlenberg, but in its place an invitation 
came to a private conference of pastors. This em- 
bittered Stoever and he wrote Muhlenberg a long 
letter. However, thirteen years afterward, in 1763, 
both Muhlenberg and the members of Synod 
agreed that Stoever should join the latter, and he 
did. The President of the Synod and all the mem- 
bers gave Stoever hand and heart, and put the old 
misunderstandings aside.* 

Pastor Stoever must have been the most widely- 
known man in the region of the Quitopahila. He 
was absent from home on his journeys too much 
to be a constant pastor to the people, and was also 
engaged in the milling business at Sunnyside and 
in a large land transaction which we shall note 
presently. But it was he who entered the Leba- 
non families and baptized the children. It was to 
him that the young and sometimes older folks 
came to be united in marriage. 

In 1745 he had married John Cunradt Temple- 
mann and Maria Elizabeth Buechlin, and in 1744 
John Philipp Holinger and Juliana Umberger. On 
January 7, 1746, he baptized a child of Matthias 

♦Hallesche Nachrichten Vol. I., Note 71, on p. 587. and Viol. II., p. 547. 
Howsoever independent and prejudiced pastor Stoever nxay have been, 
the air of authority and superiority assumed by Muhlenberg in dealing 
with him, must have been very aggravating to the pioneer missionary. 
We learn from the source indicated above, also, that Rev. Mr, Kxxrtz, 
of the Ministerium, had gone into Mr. Stoever* s field and done Stoever 
wrong, and thus prejudiced him against the Synod. 



6o STOEVER IN MIDDLE LIFE. 

Boger and Anna Magd. Wampsler, on May 15 a 
child of James Clarck and Margeretha Trotter 
and on September 4 Christoph, a child of Adam 
Ulrich, of Lebanon. In the note appended we pre- 
sent a large number of Rev. Stoever's pastoral acts 
in Lebanon, though the list is not exhaustive.* 

In the year 1763 something occurred in the his- 
tory of Lebanon which served to place Rev. Stoever 
at the head of temporal affairs in the town of Leb- 
anon, and to increase his worldly influence and 
cares in many ways. It was the downfall of George 
Steitz. We have seen that Mr. Steitz had already 
made over his three tracts of land to George Rey- 

•NOTK RBCORDINQ SOME OF REV. STOEVER' S PASTORAL, ACTS 
IN LEBANON FROM 1747 ON. 

On Jan. 13, 1747, he married Jacob Brennelser and Anna Veronica 
Wampsler, and on December 29, Volentin Herchelrodt and Ellsabetha 
Meusser, all of Lebanon. 

In 1748 he married Abraham Richardson and Maria Margaretha Mintz, 
on Sept. 24, John Carr and Margraretha Ross, and on Dec. 21 Johann 
Jacob Dietz and Catarina Holzwart, all of Lebanon. 

In 1749 and 1750 he married George Borden and Anna Catarina Um- 
benhauer, William Morris and Rebecca OUphants, Adam Buerger and 
Maria Barbara Meyer, John Henderson and Anna Simple, Johann 
Wolf Kissner and Anna Sabina Bindtnagel, of Lebanon. 

In 1751 he had ten Lebanon marriages, among which were Johannes 
Becker and Catarina Umberger, Sebastian Kirstaetter and Magdalena 
Derver, Melchoir Winckelmann and Barbara Slgrist, Franz Caspar 
Wagner and Margar. Kirstaetter, and James Rafler and Barbara Meylle. 

In 1752 and '53 he married Peter Kraemer, Philipp Welgandt, John 
Adam Barth, and Johannes Huber to Maria Elisab. Ritscher, Johann 
Mich. Kirstaetter to Maria Doroth. Dietz and Heinrich Hortle to Cata- 
rina Flmssler. 

In 1754 he married George Hansz Dietrich and Veronica Meyer. 

In 1755 he mairled George Sprecher, Johann Peter Pannekuchen, Johann 
Adam Wirth, John George Roessler, Johann Adam Stoehr, and Lorentz 
Kurtz to Maria Elizabetha Saur. 

Among the half dozen marria«efl of 1756 we find those of Michael 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 6 1 

nolds and that Reynolds and Steitz had laid them 
out *'for a town called Lebanon."* Reynolds was 
unable to hold the tracts and they were seized by 
the Sheriff of Lancaster county in execution and 
were sold at public sale to the highest bidder. They 
were bought in by a company of Lebanonians of 
whom the Lutheran minister at Sunnyside was the 
leader and head. In this way Rev. Stoever, with 
several other Lutheran and several Reformed per- 
sons, became the owners of the vacant town lots 
of Lebanon. The other owners with Rev. Stoever 
were the two inn-keepers, Christopher Wegman 

Malflr, Johann Martin Kirstnetter and Eliz. Blckel, and George Hansz 
IMetrich and Dorothea Boltz, He also baptized a daugrhter of Jacob 
"Wentz "at Lebanon (Knippen)," the name Knippen being' spelled thus 
and showing that territorial sense In which the word was used. 

In 1757 he married John Peter Ritscher and Anna Margaretha 
Klrber, John Jacob Boltz and Catarina Madern, Lebanon, Jacob Zlmp- 
fer and Anna Maria Lorentz, Lebanon, Johannes Kuemmerllngr and 
Anna Maria Pfrangr, Lebanon, Martin Schmidt and Catarina Plscher, 
Hansz Ulrich Huber and Blltabeth Flmsler, Lebanon, Peter Kraemer 
and Anna Margaretha Ernst, Lebanon, John Nicolaus Brechtbiel and 
Juliana Diller. 

In 1758, Anastasius TJhler and wife were sponsors for John Jacob, a 
cblld of Caspar Schnaebele (Anabaptist) and wife (Lutheran). In this 
year Stoever married Greorge Fischer and Anna Elisabeth Knopf, 
Antonius Karmenie and Anna Christina Hetzler, Andreas Bartruff 
and Christina Sophia Klein, Johannes Hebberling and Maria Elisab. 
Pre®«ler, Lebcmon, Robert Rogers and Anna Christina Ramberg, Peter 
Fischer and Catarina Bockle, Johann Schweickhardt Innboden and 
Eleanora Diller. Lebanon. 

In 17B9 he baptized a daughter of Martin Meyley, Jr., Jacob Weber 
and Anna Sabina Meyley being sponsors. He married Jacob Sprecher 
and Dorothea Blecher, Lebanon, Peter Brechbiel and Maria Catarina 
Franck, Lebanon, Thomas Clark and Margaretha Heydt, Martin Her- 
man and Anna Dorothea Borst, Philipp Baasz and Anna Weimer, 
Lebanon, and John Ernst Curt and Margaretha Riedt. 

In 1760 he married Jacob Ziegeler and Juliana Kirstetter, Frantz 

•See Stoever deed to the Lutheran Church, which puts the matter in a 
clear light. 



62 STOEVER IN MIDDLE LIFE. 

and Philip Greenwald, the shop-keeper Caspar 
Schnebele, and the tanner, George Hock, the car- 
penter, John Ulrick Schneble, and the blacksmith, 
y A ^ /^ ^ Christian Gish. Rev. Stoe- 

^(T^ Ca^fi^ ^^^^^^^^^^ "^ver always appears at 
the head of this company and seems to have filled 
out some of the deeds in his own handwriting.* He 



Caspar Wagner (widower) and Elizabetha Wirtz, Lebanon and Co- 
calico, Georgre Obermeyer and Anna Barbara Vogt, Hanover, Michael 
Kirber and Anna Maria Schlatter, Adam Bayer and Maria Sara 
Rltschor, Christian Mueller and Elizabeth Ried, Edward Steans and 
Mary Martin, Lebanon, Georg'e Ulrich and Elizabeth Naees, Lebanon 
and Cocalico. 

In 1761 he married Thomas Atkinson and Elizabeth Williams, John 
Daniel Stroh and Catarina Barbara Uhler, Heinrlch Schnatterle and 
Anna Barbjuu Uhler. 

In 1764 he married Jacob Fimssler and Magdalena Peter, George 
Bahner and Barbara dinger, Johannes Peter and Barbara Fimszler, 
George Federhoff and Anna Ellsabetha Schnaebelin. 

In 1765 he baptized a daughter of Phil. Gruenewoalt, Christoph. Em- 
bich and wife being sponsors, and John, a son of Christopher Embisch 
Phil. Gruenewalt and wife being sponsors. 

In 1766 he married George EUinger and Anna Maria Catarina Weyhrich, 
and Jno. George Scbock and Anna Catarina Maurer. 

In 1766 he married Johannes Stein and Eva Barbara Kucher, Jacob 
Bickel and Maria Catarina Brann, Anastasius Heylmann and Rosina 
Barbara Maurer, Geo. Maurer and Magdalena Heylmann, Caspar Ellas 
Diller, and Eva Magdalena Meyer, John Adam Weiss and Maria Eva 
Meyer, Andreas Karg and >Anna Maria Helnrich, Daniel 
Jtmgblut and Anna Maria Elizabeth Heinrlch, John Leonhardt Kirst- 
aetter and Anna Ellsabetha Zehrung, John Christoph. Uhler and Margar. 
Barbara Solcker, Lebanon. 

In 1767 he married John Thome and Anna Maria Reiss, Lebanon. 

In 1768 he married Lucas Schally and Maria Ellsabetha Boger, John 
Martin Uhler and Ana Ellsabetha Stroh, Johannes Herman and Cata- 
rina Herman, Lebanon. 

He also baptized John Friedrick, a child of Christopher Embich, on 
March 8, 1767, Philipp Marstellar and wife being sponsors. 

•See deed to John Thome, in possession of Henry Heilman. The lot 
referred to in this deed was sold at a yearly rental of three shillings and 
four pence. It was sold by Thome to Caspar Schnebele on the same 
date for three pounds Pennsylvania cxirrency, and again by Caspar 
Schnebele on February 19, 1779, for 34 pounds Pennsylvania currency. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 63 

was the best educated man in the community and 
seems to have had a capacity and a bent for the 
management of property. His associates no doubt 
left the scrivener's part of the new enterprise largely 
to him. 




CHAPTER XII. 



OLD SALEM RECEIVES HER DEED FROM STOEVER. 



M AUGUST, 1763, the pa- 
triarch Muhlenberg rode 
np from Reading to 
Stouchsburg on horse- 
back, and preached at 
Stouchsburg on the 
morning of the 28th, and 
at Schaefferstown in the 
afternoon of the same 




Fao-stmile of Stoever's deed to Salcm 



day. The pastor at Stouchsburg, was the young 
Mr. Kurtz.* This was the year after the Lebanon 
congregation had applied to Synod for admission, 
and it is just possible that young Mr. Kurtz had 
been told by synodical authority to hold service 
in Lebanon as often as he could. Whether this 
was with Rev. Stoever's consent or not we do not 
know, but in any case Rev. Stoever himself would 



•Wm. Kurtz, younger brother of John Nicholas Kurtz, assdsted his 
brother as pastor at Tulpehocken. John Nicholas first arrived at Tulpe- 
hocken December 16, 1746, and made his home with Conrad Weiser. He 
was not ordained until 1748 and remained pastor at Tulpehocken until 
April, 1770, when he removed to York. He was elected pastor at German- 
town in 1762, and from June, 1763, to June, 1764, he lived at Germantown 
without having given up his charge in Tulpehocken, his place there being 
supplied by his brother William. During his stay at Tulpehocken he 
had charge, in addition to Christ church and the Old Tulpehocken or 
Reed's church, of North Kill, (Bemville) during the whole time, the Hei- 
delberg or Eck church from Its oganization in 1730. and Atolhol or Reh- 
rersburg church.— Dr. B. M. Schmucker, in Lutheran Church Review. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 65 

not be able to preach very frequently or very reg- 
ularly on Sunday. 

Meantime the Lebanon congregation must have 
been in a bad way about its property, for the latter, 
as well as that of the Reformed church was involved 
in the Sheriff's sale of 1763. However, Rev. Stoe- 
ver and his partners decided to present the prop- 
erty, 198 by 162 feet, to the congregation. The 
deed was actually executed on the 13th of March, 
1765.* 

In this deed occur the names of the first four 
members of the congregation known. They were 
its first trustees.** The deed states that the consid- 
eration paid was five pounds Pennsylvania cur- 
rency. Whether this was a mere legal form and 
the property was an outright gift, we do not know. 
In any case the annual ground rent was to be noth- 
ing more than one red rose to be paid annually in 
June *if it were lawfully demanded.' As the deed 
will be of interest to many members, though it is 
a lengthy document, we give a transcript of it in 
full in the following note : 

DEED OF REV. CASPAR STOEVER TO THE LUTHERAN 
CHURCH OF LEBANON. 
THIS INDENTURE made the 13th day of March, in the year of our 
Lord 1765, between the Rev. John Caspar Stoever, clerk and Mary Cath- 
arine his wife, Christopher Wegman, Inn holder, and Eva Maria, his 

•Four months afterwards, on August 1, 1765, Rev. Stoever and company 
executed a similar deed to the Reformed church of Lebanon for their lot 
of ground. About two weeks before this happened, on July 18th, Rev. 
Stoever baptized a daughter of the inn-keeper. Philip Gruenenwaldt and 
wife, on the same day on which it was bom. and the sponsors were 
Christoph Embiech and wife. It may also be said here that on September 
6, 1767, Rev. Stoever baptized Christoph F. Kuemmerling, a child of 
Martin Kuemmerling, of Bethel, and Christopher Wegman was sponsor. 

•♦Two of thero, we have seen, were mentioned as trustees in the earlier 
deeds. 



66 OLD SALEM RECEIVES HER DEED. 

wife, Philip Greenwald, inn holder, and Margraretta, his wife, Casper 
Snebele, shop keeper, and Sabina. his wife. Christian Gish, blacksmith, 
and Sophia his wife, George Hock, tanner, and Sophia his wife, and Ulrlck 
Snebele, Joyner, and Eva his wife, all of Township of I#ebanon In the 
county of Lancaster, and Province of Pennsylvania, of the one Part, 
and Jacob Bickel, Daniel Stroh, Philip Femsler and Michael Rleter of 
the same place. Trustees and Wardens to and for the only Use and Benefit 
of the German Lutheran Congregation settled and established in same 
place, of the other part, 

Whereas George Reynolds, late of Lebanon aforesaid, in the said 
County of Lancaster, yeoman by virtue of devises or conveyances to him 
made was lately seized or possessed of three certain contiguous tracts 
of land in Lebanon aforesaid, which said three contiguous tracts of land 
or the better part thereof were, by the said George Reynolds and by one 
George Stltz, the former owner and possessor thereof, laid out for a 
town called Lebanon 

And HVhereas John Hay, Esq., late High Sheriff of Lancaster 
County aforesaid, by virtue of several writs to him directed seized and 
took the aforesaid three contiguous tracts of land in execution and sold 
the same and the rents, issues and profits thereof unto the said John 
Casper Stoever, Christopher Wegman, Philip Greenwald, Casper Snebele, 
Christian Gish, George Hock and Ulrich Snebele, their heirs and assigns 
forever as in and by a certain deed poll the 31st day of October, A. D. 
1763, duly executed by the said Sheriff and acknowledged in open court, 
intended to be entered on record at Lancaster, the relation thereunto 
being had at lai-ge appears. 

NoTV tills Indenture Wltnesseth that the said John Casper 
Stoever and Mary Catherine his wife, Christopher Wegman and Eva 
Maria, his wife, Philip Greenwald and Margarretta his wife, Casper Sne- 
bele and Sabina his wife. Christian Gish and Sophia his wife, George 
Hock and Sophia his wife, and Ulrich Snebele and Eva his wife, for 
and in consideration of the sum of five pounds lawful money of Pennsyl- 
vania to them In hand paid. Before the inseallng and delivery of these 
Presents, and benefit whereof is hereby acknowledged 

Have granted, bargained, sold, aliened, premised, released and en- 
feoffed and confirmed and by these Presents they, the said John Casper 
Stoever and Mary Catherine his wife, Christopher Wegman and Eva 
Maria his wife, Philip Greenwald and Margarretta his wife, Caspar 
Snebele and Sabina his wife. Christian Gish and Sophia his wife, George 
Hock and Sophia his wife and Ulrich Snebele and Eva his wife, 

Do grant, bargain, sell, aliened, premise, release and confirm unto the 
said Jacob Bickel, Daniel Stroh, Philip Fernsler and Michael Rieter and 
the survivors and survivor of them and the heirs and assigns of such 
survivor in trust to and for the only use, benefit, intent and behofC of all 
and every of y members of said Lutheran congregation and to and for 
no other use, Intent or purpose whatsoever 

All that certain lot or piece of land (it being part and partial of the 
aforesaid three contigruous tracts of land) situate in the Town of Lebanon 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 67 



aforesaid, containing In front on a street in the General Plan of the 
said Town called Water street, elgrht perches and in depth to a lot of 
Peter Shofe 12 perches, Bounded on the south by the said street, on the 
west by a 15 ft. alley, on the north by the said lot of Peter Shofe and 
on the east by a lot Intended to be granted for a School-House. 

Togretlier with all and singrular the improvements, rights, liberties, 
prlvlledg-es, hereditaments and appurtenances whatsoever thereunto be- 
longing: or in any wise appertaining and the reversions and remainders 
thereof, and all the estate, right, title, property, the interest, claim and 
demand whatsoever of them the said John Casper Stoever and Mary 
Cathrtne his wife, Chrtstopher "Wegman and Eva Maria his wife, Philip 
Greenwald and Margareta his wife, Casper Snebele and Sabina his wife. 
Christian Glsh and Sophia his wife, George Hock and Sophia his wife, 
and Ulrich Snebele and Eva his wife, of, in, and to the aforesaid de- 
scribed lot of ground, hereditaments and all and singular the premises 
with the appurtenances hereby granted and eve-ry part and parcel thereof. 
To Have and to Hold the said above mentioned and described lot 
of ground, hereditaments and premises hereby granted and released or 
mentioned and intended so to be, with the appurtenances unto the said 
Jacob Bickel, Daniel Stroh, Philip Femsler, and Michael Rieter and 
the survivors or survivor of them, and the heirs and assigns of such 
survivor nevertheless to and for the only benefit, use and behoof 
the German Lutheran congregation settled and established in that part of 
the country, bargained premises is situated Ij'ing and being and to and 
for no other use. Intent and purpose forever. 

Yielding: and paying therefor unto the aforesaid grantors, their 
heirs and assigns at the said town of Lebanon the yearly rent of one red 
roce in June in every year forever hereafter, if the same shall be lawfully 
demanded. 

And the said John Caspar Stoever, Christopher Wegman, Philip Green- 
wald, Caspar Snebele, Christian Gish, George Hock and Ulrich Snebele, 
for themselves severally and respectively and for their several and re- 
spective heirs and every of them do covenant, promise and grant to 
and with the said Jacob Bickel, Daniel Stroh, Philip Femsler and Mich- 
ael Rieter, Trustees as aforesaid, and the survivors and survivor of 
them, and the heirs and assigns of such survivor in trust to and for the 
use, Intents and purposes aforesaid, and their successors in the said trust 
forever. That they, the said John Caspar Stoever Christopher Wegman, 
Philip Greenwald, Caspar Snebele, Christian Gish, George Hock and 
Ulrich Snebele, and their severtil and respective heirs, and every of 
them. The said described lot of ground hereditaments and premises 
hereby granted, or mentioned so to be, with the appurtenances unto the 
said Jacob Bickel, Daniel Stroh, Philip Femsler and Michael Rieter, 
In trust as aforesaid, against them the said John Caspar Stoever, Chris- 
topher Wegman, Philip Greenwald, Caspar Snebele, Christian Gish, 
George Hock, and Ulrich Snebele and the several and respective heirs 
and against all and every other person and persons whatsoever shall 
and will warrant and forever defend by these Presents, 



68 OLD SALEM RECEIVES HER DEED. 

In "Witness the said parties to these have herewith interchangeably 
set their hands and Seals dated the Day and Year first above written. 
SEALED AND DELIVERED IN THE PRESENCE OF US, 
By John Caspar Stoever and Mary Catherine his wife, Christopher Weg- 
man and Eva Maria his wife, and Philip Greenwald and Margaretta 
his wife. 
JACOB WEISER. PHILIP MARSTELLER. 

Sealed and Delivered by Caspar Snebele and Sabina. his wife, Chris- 
tian Qish and Sophia his wife, George Hoke and Sophia his wife, 
Ulrey Snebele and Eva his wife, in the presence of 

ANASTASIUS UHLER, 
GEORGE STROW, 
PHILIP MARSTELLER. 
THE 30th Day of July in he Yeer of our Lord 1765. Before me the Sub- 
scriber one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County of 
Lancaster, came the above named John Caspar Stoever and Mary 
Catherine his Wife, Christopher Wegmaa and Eva Maria his Wife, 
Philip Greenwald and Margareta his Wife, Caspar Snebele and Sabina 
his Wife, Christian Glsh and Sophia his Wife, George Hock and Sophia 
his Wife, and Ulrlck Snebele and Eva his Wife and acknowledgred the 
above Indenture to be their act and deed and desired that same might 
be Recorded as such, the said Mary Catherine, Eva Maria, Margareta, 
Sabina, Sophia, Sophia, and Eva thereunto freely Consenting they and 
each of them being of full age, and by me privately examined. 

In Witness whereof I have hereto set my Hand and Seal the day and 
Year aforesaid. JOHN HAY. 

Kntered in the office for Recording of Deeds in and for the County 
of liancaster in Book H, Page 299, the 24th Day of August. Anno Domini 
one Thousand Seven Hundred and Slxty-flve, Witness my hand and Seal of 
my office aforesaid. EDW. SHIPPEN, 

Recorder, 
her 
MARY CATHERINE STOEVER JOHN CASPAR STOEVER 

mark 
her 
EVA MARIA WEGMAN CHRISTOPHER WEGMAN, JR. 

mark 
her 
MARQARBTTA GREENWALD PHILIP GREENWALD 

mark 
her 
SABINA SNBVELY CASPAR SCHNEBLI 

mark 
her 
SOPHIA QISH CHRISTIAN GISH 

mark 
her 
SOPHIA HOKE GEORGE HOCK 

mark 
her 
EVA SNEVELY ULRICK SNEBELE 

mark 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE FIRST TRUSTEES AND THEIR ACKNOWLEDG- 
MENT OF TRUST. 

THE first four men to appear definitely on the 
page of Old Salem's history are its trus- 
tees. Except the Rev. Stoever, Mrs. Cas- 
par Schnebele,* the wife of one of the donors 
of the land, and Christopher Wegman,** an- 
other of the donors, who were undoubtedly Lu- 
therans, and Henry Rade, the first delegate to 
Synod in 1760, and who presented a lot to the 
church, the four men appearing on the deed as 
trustees are the only members of the Lebanon Lu- 
theran congregation whose names we know up to 
this point. The first of them, Jacob Bickel, was 
perhaps a personal friend of Stoever's.* He was 



•Caspar Schnebele himself was an Anabaptist. See Stoever' s Diary, 
p. 47. 

••Chi-istopher Wegrman was a sponsor for one of Rev. Stoever* s own 
children, at the bapUsm taking place September 30, 1759 (See Stoever* s 
Diary), and probably therefore a Lutheran. Moreover, Christopher 
Wegmeui, Jr., was one of the "professed members of the protestant Luth- 
eran religion," sending out a petition for aid in 1768. 

•When Rev. Stoever baptized his own grandchild, the daughter of 
J. C. Stoever, Jr., of Bethel, on Feb. 12, 1758, Heinrich Bickel was a 
sponsor of the child, and Anna Margaretha Stoever was the other 
sponsor. Both sponsors were single persons. In Sept., 1765, six months 
after Rev. Stoever had deeded the lot to Jacob Bickel and the other trus- 
tees, be baptized throe childreo of Tobias Bickel and wife, Tulpehocken. 



^O THE FIRST TRUSTEES. 

unmarried at this time, and just a year after the 
ground was deeded, on March 4th, 1766, Rev. 
Stoever married him to Maria Catarina Braun, 
both of Lebanon. Of Daniel Strow, the second 
trustee, we know that four years earUer* Rev. Stoe- 
ver had married John Daniel Stroh into the strong 
Lutheran family of Uhler. It was a double wed- 
ding, in fact, Stroh having married Catarina Bar- 
bara, and Heinrich Schnatterle having married 
Anna Barbara Uhler on the same day. 

The third trustee, Philip Fernsler, was proba- 
bly the John Philipp Firnszler whom Rev. Stoever 
had married thirty-four years earlier** to Maria Bar- 
bara George, and who possibly had come over to 
America on September 21st, 1727, in the ship Wil- 
liam and Sarah."^ This founder of the family had 
a son named John Philip, who was born in Sep- 
tember, 1734, and who was consequently 26 years 
of age when we first came across the Fernsler name 
as a Salem trustee in the old deeds. He was bap- 
tized and confirmed and was married to Christina 
Stoever.** He died in May, 1708, at the age of 73 
years and 8 months. Private papers of the family 
mention Catherine, Philip, Christian and John as 
his children. The family lived in South Lebanon 
township on the farm adjoining the one now occu- 
pied by Adam Fernsler, one of the present Salem 

♦June 16, 1761, in Stoever Diary. 

♦•April 26, 1731. 

♦The name is given as Philip Peruser in "Rupp's Thirty Thousand 
Names." 

♦♦The family had eight children, of whom seven were llvinfir at the 
time of the father's death (SaJem Ch. Record). 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. ^I 

trustees, and the John Philip, of whom we are 
speaking, was buried at the Qruppen Kirch (Dr. 
Lochmann's spelHng). John Philip must have been 
a man of business ability and of affairs. He was 
the executor of several estates, including that of 
Michael Fernsler. His own administrators were 
Frederick Fernsler and Tobias Fernsler. 

Michael Fernsler was possibly another son of the 
original Fernsler and a brother of the second John 
Philip. He died about 1777 (Private papers of fam- 
ily. There is no record of his death in Salem 
Church Record) and left four children, Catharine 
(mr. John Imboden), Christiana (mr. Adam Dy- 
singer) and Peter and Elizabeth, minors, of whom 
Christopher Uhler was the guardian. 

On March 6th, 1764, Jacob Firnsler was married 
by Rev. Stoever to Magdalena Peter, both of Leb- 
anon, and the next month, on April 5th, Barbara 
Firnsler was married by him. On August 15th, 
Philipp Firnssler and his wife, Anna Christina, were 
sponsors for one of Stoever's grandchildren. This 
fact and that of the marriage in the Stoever fam- 
ily presumes some degree of intimacy between the 
first pastor and the first trustee. 

Of the fourth trustee, John Michael Rieter, the 
church record* says that he was born on Septem- 
ber 8, 1723, in Wuertemberg, and baptized and 
confirmed in the old country, and married there in 
1748. In 1750 he came to America and came to 

•Pa«e 346. 



72 THE FIRST TRUSTEES. 

Lebanon in 1763.* He is the only one of the 
trustees whose name appears on the record some 
years later (when it was begun) as a communicant 
member of the church.** Of these four families, 
two are still represented and very active in the con- 
gregation today, a century and a third after this 
beginning was made. 

The four trustees were to be held strictly re- 
sponsible for the public and Lutheran trust they 
assumed, and on the same day on which the deed 
was executed they gave a legal Declaration of 
Trust* in which their powers were carefully delim- 
ited. Probably the experience of Rev. Stoever in 
seeing church properties diverted from their orig- 
inal doctrinal intention, caused him to be more than 
ordinarily careful in this matter. In the Declara- 
tion, the trustees as yoemen in the province of 
Pennsylvania, send greeting to all people to whom 
these presents may concern, and state that in a deed 
of even date with this Declaration, Rev. Stoever 
and Co. had made over to them a certain Lot of 
Ground in the town of Lebanon ^'containing in front 
on Water street eight perches and in depth to a lot 
of Peter Shofe twelve perches, and marked in the 
said plan of said town in trust for the use, intents 
and purposes in said Indenture," "and, whereas, 
there is now erecting or intending immediately 

♦He died on March 21, 1800, at the age of 76, and left four children. 

♦♦His wife also was a communicant. 

♦The original parchment Declaration Is very much faded, and It and an 
old paper coimterpart are still among the documents of the Treasurer of 
the congregation. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 



73 



to be erected on the aforesaid Lot of Ground a 
Larg Building for a place of Worship, intended 

hereafter to be called church, and the 

said 'lot or peace of ground' was granted to us 'by 
the directions and appointment of such of the in- 
habitants of the said town, and they agreed with 
parts of the said county as are members of the de- 
nomination of the German Evangelical Lutheran 
congregation professing the doctrine, worship and 
discipline agreeable to the Unvariated Confession 
of Augsburg,' and the above recited indenture was 
made to us and the aforesaid building hereafter to 
be finished and erected on the said lot 'in trust for 
the use and service of the members or persons be- 
longing to the aforesaid congregation assembled 
for public worship from time to time, and a place to 
bury the dead, and upon this further trust and confi- 
dence to the intent only that we," the trustees' "or 
such or so many of us as shall be and [remain(?)] in 
unity and religious fellowship with the said congre- 
gation whereunto we now belong, should stand and 
be seized of the said lot of ground and buildings 
thereon erected or to be erected to and for the uses 
aforesaid and to and toi no other use, intent or 
purpose whatsoever and under the conditions, pro- 
visoes and restrictions given after mentioned. 

Provided always that neither we or any other 
persons succeeding us in this trust "who shall be 
declared by the vote of the two full third parts of 
the number of male communicating members of the 
said congregation for the time being be out of unity 



74 THE FIRST TRUSTEES. 

with them shall be capable to execute this trust, . , 
nor have any right or interest in the premises while 
we or they shall so remain, but that in all such cases 
as also when any of us or others succeeding .... 
shall happen to depart this life" then it shall be law- 
ful for ''the two full third parts of the. .male com- 
municating members .... to make choice of oth- 
ers to manage .... the said trust instead of such 
as shall fall away or be deceased and upon this fur- 
ther trust and confidence that we ... . upon the 
request of the full two third parts of the male com- 
municating members for the time being either to 
assign over the said trust or convey .... the said 

Lot of Ground to such persons as shall 

by them be nominated and appointed .... 

"Now KNOW^ YE that we for the more effectual 
reserving the said lot ... . and buildings to be 
erected .... for the uses aforesaid 

Do hereby acknowledge and declare that our 
names as inserted were so inserted and made use 
of for and on the behalf of the congregation afore- 
said, and we are therein trusted only by and for the 
members in unity with the said congregation and 
that we do not claim to have .... or ought to 
have any right .... in the said lot .... to our 
own use or benefit only, but only to and for the use, 
intent and services before mentioned under the lim- 
itation and restrictions above expressed and reserv- 
ed for no other .... purpose or service whatso- 
ever. 

"We the said Jacob Bickel, Daniel, Stroh .... 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 



75 



Philip Fernsler and Michael Riether have set our 
hands and seals thereunto the 13th day of March, 
A. D. 1765." 

The Declaration was acknowledged before J. J. 
Fay, justice of Lancaster county, on July 30, 1765, 
and sealed and delivered in the presence of Chris- 
topher Kucher, John Fay and John Thome. It was 
entered in the office for Recording of Deeds for 
Lancaster County, Book H, p. 296, on Aug. 22, 

1765. 

In this paper, as also in the deed, we see clearly 
that the original grant was not the whole block of 
ground 198 feet square, but ran from the alley 132 
feet along Willow street toward Eighth, and leav- 
ing a lot of 66 feet at Eighth and Willow streets 
still out of our possession, but as the deed says "in- 
tended to be granted to us for a School-House." 

We learn also that in this first paper of trust be- 
longing to the congregation, the latter deemed the 
cause of education of great importance and that the 
ground on Eighth street was a separate property, 
set apart for a school house. 

The Declaration seems to show also that the sur- 
rounding country membership (Hill Church and 
Grube Kirche) are at this time in accord with the 
movement in Lebanon, and that Rev. Stoever him- 
self is in full sympathy with it. It still further 



76 THE FIRST TRUSTEES. 

serves to indicate how fully and completely the offi- 
cers of the Church were in power only to serve the 
teaching of the Church and the will of the congre- 
gation. To such an extent was this the case that 
if at any time two-thirds of the members thought 
that the officers were overstepping the bounds of 
authority committed to them, the latter were to be 
removed. 

We learn still further that in this first Acknowl- 
edgment of Trust, and in connection with the very 
ground upon which we stand, the faith of the Un- 
altered Augsburg Confession (i. e. "Old Lutheran- 
ism") was expressly specified as the purpose and 
the only purpose for which the property existed, 
and we can have the glad consciousness that 
through the storms of a century and a third, though 
many other sections of the State have yielded, Old 
Salem has always stood in doctrine firm as a rock. 
The adamantine character is rarely in favor in any 
generation, but it is the one that outlives genera- 
tions and remains true to its destiny. It has its de- 
fects, which we must accept and attempt to over- 
come, and its strength through which we hope to 
abide. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



OLD SALEm's first CHURCH. 




T was in March of '65 that 
the Church ground was 
deeded. By July of that 
year the lot intended for 
the School-h o u s e on 
Eighth street* had prob- 
ably not yet come into its 
possession,** though as 
early as March it was ''in- 
tended to be granted for a School House." But in 
March already the trustees had said that ''a large 
building is now erecting or intending to be imme- 
diately erected on the lot." The building was 
placed on the corner of Willow street and Doe alley, 
and was a structure of logs, surmounted by a small 
steeple. It is the conviction of the writer that the 
building was begun in 1766. This date is contrary to 
the universally received tradition.* But the trustees 
definitely say the building was ''erecting or intend- 
ing to be immediately erected" in 1765. Dr. Loch- 
mann expressly states that the Church was built in 



•Probably the corner of Eighth and Willow streets. 
••It would doubtless, though not neceBsaurily, have been mentioned In 
the Trustees* Acknowledgement, if it had. 

•This tradition is based upon the retition of 1768. There are many 
other facts to be taken into consideration. 



78 OLD SALEM'S FIRST CHURCH. 

1766. The Petition of 1768 as a general statement 
drawn up for strangers and intended to be as brief 
as possible and to influence persons to give, does 
not, in my judgment, preclude the theory that the 
building was already under way when it was drawn 
up. We know further that on the 4th of May, 1766, 
delegates from Lebanon went to Lancaster to par- 
ticipate in the dedication of Old Trinity Church,* 
and that on June nth of the same year delegates 
from Lebanon went to Synod at Philadelphia and 
were present at the corner-stone laying of the great 
Zion Church there. It is not unlikely that these del- 
egates returned home with great enthusiasm for the 
immediate erection of the Church which had been 
intended already in 1765, and that they pushed the 
project into action. We know, further, that the 
Grube building was abandoned and torn down in 
1768, which perhaps would hardly have been the 
case if there were no church begun in Lebanon in 
which (recalling Stoever's words) town and country 
could agree to worship. Again, in 1769, the con- 
gregation received the beautiful new communion 
service, presented by Andreas Doewler, which is 
still handsome. It is more likely that the gift was 
bestowed because it was already needed in the new 
Church than because it would be needed in a year 
or two to come.** But one of the most cogent ar- 
guments of all for the earlier building (i. e. before 

•The present buildlnsr. 

♦•This communion service comprises two flagons, two plates and a 
chalice, and Is kept with th« other church vessels. It bears the inscrip- 
tion "Henrich Andonlus Doewler, 1769." 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 



79 



1769, 1770) is the fact that our small bell was cast 
in London in 1770 for the "Lutheran Congrega- 
tion in Lebanon Town." Now when a congrega- 
tion is about to build a church, the bell that is to be 
raised on the completed structure, is not one of the 
first things the builders think about. It is usually 
one of the last. Yet here were Pack and Chapman 
in far off London casting a bell for us already in 

1770. Correspondence was very slow in that day, 
and bell making was not a rapid process, and the 
bell must have been cast many months after the or- 
der was given, and if the order was given only when 
the Church was under way, as is likely, this would 
throw the beginning of the building into the earlier 
period. There is still a final point to be made in fa- 
vor of this view. It is that German Christians, and 
especially Lutherans, would hardly begin the work 
of a new church by calling on outsders — the general 
public of the province, first of all, to enable them to 
carry it out. They would be far more likely to give 
what they could, and build what they could, and 
only after they discovered that they were getting 
into too deep water and that they could not finish 
the undertaking, would they be likely to apply to 
outsiders. 

For these reasons we set down the beginning of 
the building in 1766. In 1767 came the death of 
George Steitz.* Tradition says he was a member 

•George Reynolds probably died in 1766. It is sad to see how swiftly 
these men drop off after the Sheriff's sale of '63. In 1760 George had 
married Eleonora Trotter, daughter of Robert Trotter. She was bom 
on October 13, 1736, and was baptized and confirmed. They had one 
child, who married Thomas Clark. Eleonora Reynolds died June 30, 1798, 
at the age of 61 years, 8 mo. and 2 weeks. (See Church Record.) 



8o OLD SALEM'S FIRST CHURCH. 

of the Salem Church, and it would have been a very 
extraordinary thing for him to have signed that 
stififest of Lutheran papers as a member of the Tul- 
pehocken Lutheran Church, with Stoever, if he had 
not himself been a Lutheran. 

(Steitz's tomb has not been found, though the 
tombstones of his daughter Eleanor and his grand- 
daughter Catharine Reynolds, who married Thom- 
as Clark against her grandfather's wish, are all to 
be found in our old graveyard. For a curious the- 
ory of Rev. P. C. Croll as to the burial of Steitz on 
the Old Reformed cemetery, see CroU's Landmarks 
in the Lebanon Valley. The theory is that a tomb- 
stone bearing the name ''George Stein" originally 
read ''George Steitz." Rev. Croll says the date of 
death of the occupant seems to be 1787). 

The oldest record of burial that is marked by a 
tombstone on Salem Lutheran cemetery is the fol- 
lowing : 

1ST GEBOREN IM JAHR 
1 75 1, DEN 24 AUGUST, 
1ST GESTORPEN IM JAHR 
1768. 

This inscription is on the top part of the stone 
which is broken and removed from its original 
place — the lower part cannot be found. 

In 1768, the Petition, already referred to, was 
sent out to well-disposed Protestants. It was sign- 
ed by the Rev. John Caspar Stoever and nine mem- 



OLD SALEM CHURCH, 8 1 

bers of the Church, and was attested by six justices 
of the peace of Lebanon township and of the bor- 
ough of Lebanon. There are two copies of it in the 
possession of the congregation, the one in English 
with the Treasurer's documents, and the one in Ger- 
man, discovered recently by Dr. Schantz and my 
father in connection with the old Church records. 
As the English Petition has frequently been in 
print, and as the German was the original, written 
in a better Lutheran tone, by Stoever himself, I give 
a rough translation of the German here. It will be 
noticed that Rev. John Nicholas Kurtz personally 
endorses and attests the German paper. His en- 
dorsement shows that Stoever and he were united 
in this matter of building, and that probably thor- 
ough harmony prevailed in favor of the undertak- 
ing. 

Grace and Peace, Salvation and Blessingr from God the Father In Christ 
Jesus to each and all protestant lovers of the Divine Word and to the 
congreg-ations of the Evangrelical Religion, together with our greeting. 

SINCE in the little town of Lebanon, newly laid out some years ago, 
there has been gathered a small number of members confessing the 
Evangelical Lutheran Religion and they have built homes here and up 
to this time have held their Divine Service in private houses, but have 
been obliged on account of the growth of the congregation and the small- 
nees of the space to decide to build up a proper church building for the 
more comfortable ordering of all acts of Divine worship^ 

BUT of ourselves unaided we have not the means (because we are for 
the mo«t part beginners [in settling here] and also have just recently 
bought a schoolhouse) to carry out this highly necessary church building 
In a worthy manner. Therefore there is sent forth this friendly petition 
to each and all the protestant lovers and upright friends of the Christian 
Evangelical Religion and the Divine Word that for the furthering of the 
glory of God and of the Christian religion, they would favor us in 
thla our Christian purpose with their temporal blessings and ability 
and with a cheerful heart aid us somewhat with their beneficent hands. 

For the receiving of such gifts of love we have empowered the bearers 



82 OLD SALEM'S FIRST CHURCH. 

of this, our trusty brethren, Friedrich Yenael, Christian Frendllng. 

May the giver of all grood and perfect gifts again recompense each and 
all of the benevolent benefactors who have presented their gifts of love 
to us for our building of the church, abundantly in body and soul with 
a thousandfold blessings in time and eternity. 
This do the undersigned wish from the depth of their heart. 
L/ebanon the 2nd Day of September, 1768. 

John Caspar Stoever, pastor in Lebanon, hereby testifies that the above 
is in accordance with the truth. 

DANIEL. STROH. 
JACOB EMEL. 
MICHAEL, RIEDER. 
PHILIP FERNSLKR. 
JOHANN HEINRICH RAHDER, 
JOHANN JACOB STIEB, 
FRIEDRICH YENSEL, 
GEORGE DIETRICH, 
CHRISTOPHER WEGMAN, JR. 

Ph. de HAAS. 
I, the undersigned, testify to what is stated above, with the earnest 
plea that each one who calls himself a Christian will bear in mind the 
admonition of the Holy Scriptures: To do good and to help each 
other, forget not. NICOLAUS KURTZ, Pastor, 



Of these men, nothing has come to light in refer- 
ence to Emel or Immel. Nor is anything known 
of Daniel Stroh, though we know George Strow 
signed a Stoever deed as a witness on October 31, 
1765. Frederick Yensel is a faithful and regular 
communicant as early as the Church Records open, 
and is here entrusted with the difficult task of col- 
lecting funds. 

There are few families that have an older and 
more honorable record in the congregation than 
that of the Yensel family. Michael Rieder we have 
seen to have been a regular communicant, Jacob 
Stieb went to the first recorded communion, and so 
likewise did George Dietrich. Antonius Doewler, 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 83 

who presented the Communion Service, was also a 
regular communicant. 

With what success the petition met is unknown. 
The result was probably not what was expected, 
and the ''large log church" which doubtless was be- 
gun in 1766* and in which the first communion per- 
haps was celebrated in 1769, and which in 1770 or 
later received the beautiful little bell, which has a 
considerable quantity of silver in its composition 
and weighs about 1000 pounds, in its steeple,** the 
whole being surmounted by the curious iron rooster 
as a weather vane,* remained unfinished, though 
used, for some years. One reason for the disheart- 
ening delay was the cropping out of the old dififi- 
culty, as to the pastorate,** in an aggravated form. 

♦Regina, the German captive, had been released at Carlisle in 1765 
on recogrnizingr her mother's sln^ngr of the German choral "Allein und 
doch nicht granz allein." In this year also the first stamp act was passed 
agrainst the colonies, and at Philadelphia the Medical School of the 
University of Pennsylvania was founded. The University had already 
been founded, and soon here and at the University of New York Dr. 
Kuntze was to become the first professor of the Hebrew and Oriental 
langruages in this country. Between 1745 and 1770 more than 50 German 
clergymen came to Pennsylvania, educated in the German universities, 
and their thorougrh knowledge, especially of the Latin language, awak- 
ened the admiration of the Harvard professors of that day. 

•♦The bell bears the inscription in raised letters, "For the Lutheran 
congregation in Lebanon town, Lancaster county, in the Province of 
Pennsylvania. Pack and Chapman of London, Fecit 1770." It is in use 
every Sunday. 

•It is an odd fact that instead of a cross, old Salem should always 
have had a weather vane, the symbol of the unsteady, the varying, the 
changeable, upon her loftiest peak. The emblem does not accord with the 
sturdiness of either her faith or her history. 

•♦Of the meeting of the Ministerium in 1767, no records are existent. 
But in 1768, 1769, 1770 (nothing is known of 1771), 1772, Rev. Stoever was 
present at Synod and took an active part in both the business proceedings 
and the worship of the body. In one of the years he was a member of 
the Examining Committee, and, we think, Peter Muhlenberg appeared be- 



84 OLD SALEM'S FIRST CHURCH. 

It must have been a painful situation for the con- 
gregation in 1770 and 1771, and in September, 

1772, the matter was brought before Synod. 

Only now are our eyes opened to the magnitude 
of the dispute into which the congregation had 
drifted.* One neither can nor should pass judg- 
ment upon the parties involved. There were two 
sides to the case. Rev. Stoever doubtless felt that 
he had been the pioneer in the community for a full 
generation ; that he was the chief Lutheran person- 
age in the place; that he had donated the ground, 
and used his influence to secure contributions. But 
he was in a minority. His manner was not calculat- 
ed to make friends, and a large part of the congre- 
gation must have felt that under his scant ministra- 
tions progress was not being made. 

Of this trouble, coming before Synod at Lancas- 
ter, on the morning of Tuesday, September 29th, 
we have just discovered the following account in the 
Documentary History of the Ministerium.**'*In the 
morning session the matter of the dispute in the 
congregation in Lebanon was taken up, which is 

fore him as a candidate. He was there also from the Lebanon district in 

1773. Frederick August Muhlenberg was there from Heidelberg town. 
From 1774 to 1777 the disturbances connected with the Revolutionary War 
interfered with the meetings, and from '77 to '79 Rev. Stoever was doubt- 
less too aged to attend. Lay delegates from Lebanon, Manheim, Schaef- 
ferstown, were present at the dedication of Zion church in Philadelphia. 
Rev. Stoever took part In the exercises. The heat on that day was bo 
great, and the crowd present so large that the sermon could not be con- 
cluded. A collection of £200, P. S., was lifted at the doors. 

*The Church was bom and bred in tribulation, and it was no wonder 
that the succeeding generation, in taking a new start, desired to call 
it "Salem." 

••Page 132. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 



85 



too extended to be here described. The congrega- 
tion has divided into two parties; the minor party 
adheres to Rev. St , and assumes right and au- 
thority over the half-built church, and whoever can- 
not and will not side with Mr. St is denied a 

right in the church and cemetery. On the one side 
the Zinzendorfians, who have an organization near 
here, watch diligently; on the other side, the vaga- 
bonds* prowl around, and seek to fish in the muddy 
water. The major part of the congregation has for 
years earnestly requested the Ministerium, that 

their grievances against Mr. St might be heard 

and investigated, and decided. But this could not 
be accomplished otherwise, ut et audiretur altera 
pars, and this not without mutual consent, for the 
Ministerium has no authoritative power, conse- 
quently it must have been decided before the gov- 
ernmental authority by a formal process, and the 
laws of this country have nothing to do with reli- 
gious disputes or questions of the law. And if two 
parties desire to decide a matter of dispute by arbi- 
tration, both parties must give their consent, and 
obligate themselves in writing, that they will yield 
to the arbitrators they have chosen. The Ministe- 
rium offered such an arbitration, and the complain- 
ing party was very willing to accede, but Mr. 

St is said to have answered, he did not want to 

be judged, etc. Finally he consented, and a com- 

•Self-constituted wandering preachers, of no character who officiated for 
the sake of the loaves and fishes. There were a number of such in Penn- 
sylvania at this time. 



86 OLD SALEM'S FIRST CHURCH. 

mittee was appointed by the Ministerium to inves- 
tigate, and was sent to Lebanon. But he was unwil- 
ling to obligate himself to receive their decision, 
and so the whole meeting and transaction had the 
same form as an irregular Polish ''Reichstag." The 
committee, therefore, upon the earnest request of 

the major party, found reason to advise Fr 

M to accept of and serve them, because he 

lived nearest. But Mr. St behaved, as the fable 

says, like the dog on the hay stack. Briefly, since 
he would not give up the Church, our people spoke 
to the Reformed, asking them for permission to use 
their church, and were there served by Frederick 
Miihlenberg, now and then, as his other congrega- 
tional engagements permitted him. But what the 
delegates of the larger party wanted this time con- 
sisted of two points : (a) that we should exclude Mr. 

St from the United Ministerium, (b) or consent 

that they might open the Lutheran Church forcibly 
and hold their services in it. Neither of these was 
the Ministerium willing to grant and advise, but re- 
solved to send a letter to Mr. St , and in it re- 
monstrate with him, that it might be well to open 
the Church to the large party opposed to him, to be 
used on those Sundays when he with his small party 
did not use it, and at his pleasure he might retain 
the right in it when the others had no service." 



CHAPTER XV. 



A NEW PASTOR. 



3 



j\ArS<^ 3k4 I 



^j^j^ 



VIDENTLY the request 
of Synod had an effect 
upon Pastor Stoever. 
Not only must the 
church have been opened 
to all, but by May ist, 
^772>y young Frederick 
Augustus Conrad Muh- 
lenberg was pastor 
there.* Young Muhlen- 
berg had evidently been 
to Lebanon and officiated 
here at least a year before 
the congregational diffi- 
culties had been referred 
to Synod. In the old 
Church Record we find** 
, , , the record of a commu- 

nion held on the Sunday Exaudi 1771 in 
the handwriting of Muhlenberg. This is the 
oldest record of any kind in the books of the 
congregation, and it shows that on that day there 
were 89 communicants, of whom the men were 







•He so states In title pagre of the first Church Record Book 
ord^!^ 414. This la IB an obscure place a^d out of the ehronolofflcal 



gg A NEW PASTOR. 

Jacob Stieb, Martin Yensel, Christopher Friedrich, 
Peter Richart, Nicolaus Gebhard, Friedrich Yen- 
sel, John Heikedorn, Christoph Embig, Anthon 
Doebler, Peter Miller, Michael Rider, Adam 
Schott, and Bernhardt and Jacob Embig. 

Young Muhlenberg was 23 years old when he 
began his pastorate, in 1773, and the first child he 
baptized here was Johan Schantz Henrich (Henry). 
The second was Maria Jacobina Ritscher, a daugh- 
ter of John Peter Ritscher.* Pastor Muhlenberg 
recorded at least thirteen baptisms, and five deaths, 
including children of George Risling and Christo- 
phel Kucher. The only adult death recorded by 
him is that of Daniel Ziebel, a regular member of 
the congregation. He has placed a register of sub- 
jects and pages toward the close of the book, in ad- 
dition to the enumeration on the title page. Ac- 
cording to this latter register, the first page of bap- 
tisms, a page of confirmations, and the record of 
elders and deacons have been cut out of the book. 
Close examination will show that leaves are missing 
at these places in the book. Their loss is a great 
one to the record. There is no record of either 
catechumens or of marriages by Muhlenberg, now 
in the book. On the last page Muhlenberg, under 
the date of May 12th, 1773, gives the names of those 
who have paid the '*Herr Schulmeister's" money 
in advance. Here we see that the congregation al- 

♦Mr. Ritscher took the precaution to have the baptisms of his three 
other children inscribed on the first page of this first Church Register. 
They are Ma«dalena, John Adam, whom we shall meet often again, 
and John. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 89 

ready in 1773 was supporting a schoolmaster as 
well as a pastor, and that a few of the prominent 
members of the church were giving largely, in ad- 
vance, for the purpose. Messrs. Stieb, Steckbeck, 
Marsteller and Doebler each gave £3. Mr. Stoehr 
£2. Mr. Fetzberger, £2, los, and Messrs. Jensel, 
Wolfert and Ziebold each £1. Mr. Dieterich seems 
at first to have subscribed £2 also. 

The first communion under the new pastor was 
held on the Sunday Cantate in the Spring of 1773. 
At the preparatory service 88 persons appeared. 
Though it is generally supposed that in the olden 
time of the last century, woman was invariably put 
back into the second place by the fathers, yet here 
in this communion record of 1773, the names of the 
women appear first. The list is headed by Eleo- 
nora de Haas, doubtless the wife of squire John 
Philip de Haas, who played such a prominent part 
in the early legal, political and military history of 
the town. Four Embichs, three Germans (Gar- 
mans), six Ensmingers, three Steckbecks, several 
Beckleys and Ellingers, three Yensels, Christ, and 
Marg. Kucher, Geo. and Barbara Gieseman, Marg. 
Cormanni, Mrs. Eliz. Weiss, George and Nicolas 
Gebhard, and Michael Rieder (Ritter) and wife 
were among the communicants. At the Fall Com- 
munion on the 1 8th Sunday after Trinity, there 
were 55 persons participating. Among the new 
names are those of Agnes Braun, Jacob and Barbara 
Voigt, Matthew Voigt, John Atkinson, George 
Meile and his wife Rachel, Adam Eckart, Jacob 



90 A NEW PASTOR. 

Hecker, and James Ross and wife. At the follow- 
ing Spring Communion on the Sunday Jubilate, 
among others were Juliana Eichelberger, Anne M. 
Ritscher, Eva Kobin, George Sprecher, Peter En- 
dres, Adam and Jacob Lehmann and their wives, 
Leonhardt Witmeier and wife and Ludwig Schott 
and wife. This time there were 94 communicants 
in all. A beautiful linen cover for the communion 
vessels has come down to us from these commu- 
nions of 1773, having been used for the first time 
then and after that regularly for over a century.* 
The date is worked in red silk in one corner, and 
it is said that the cloth was ornamented with small 
stars and crowns worked in red silk floss. These 
have almost entirely disappeared from the material. 
It should be noticed that some of the prominent 
members of the church, e. g., the Fernslers, are 
missing at these early communions of Muhlenberg. 
They were friends of Rev. Stoever and no doubt 
communed at his services held either here or at the 
Hill Church. Rev. Stoever continued to hold ser- 
vices in the Lebanon Church until 1779, the year 
of his death, and it is not likely that there was any 
serious friction in this double pastoral arrange- 
ment, as both pastors attended the meetings of 
Synod and were in some wise amenable there. 
Pastor Muhlenberg must have been fluent in the 
use of both the German and the English languages. 
It is not certain whether he actually resided in Leba- 

*It is worn through In one or two places now, and ia no long:er 
in use. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH, 



91 



non, but it is probable. He first came into the re- 
gion toward the close of the year 1770, living with 
his brother-in-law, Rev. Schulze, pastor at 
Stouchsburg, and helping him in his charge. He 
preached especially at SchaefTerstown, and as stated 
above must have gotten to Lebanon and officiated 
here occasionally before he was pastor. He began 
his pastorate here on May i, 1773, and probably 
had been married shortly before. 

After Muhlenberg left Lebanon, he became one 
of the most famous men that Pennsylvania ever 
has had, in both state and national affairs, and Old 
Salem has always been proud of the fact that her 
first pastor* was a member of the Continental Con- 
gress, and President of the Convention that adopt- 
ed the Constitution of the United States. But for 
a long while there has been a dispute between the 
historians and Old Salem as to the length of Muh- 
lenberg's pastorate in Lebanon. On the one hand 
the historians, relying on a statement of Dr. Kunze, 
Muhlenberg's brother-in-law, claim that Muhlen- 
berg removed to New York in 1773. On the other 
hand it has been claimed at Lebanon that his pas- 
torate here lasted until 1775. A close examination 
of the Church Record seems to show that neither 
party is correct. Muhlenberg began his pastorate 
here on May ist, 1773, and baptized, buried and 
held communions in Lebanon for over a year. It is 
likely that he departed for New York in the Fall or 
Summer of 1774. The next chapter will furnish 
a brief sketch of his life as a whole. 



♦1. e. The first one who served her excltiaively. 




CHAPTER XVI. 

FRIEDRICH AUGUSTUS CONRAD MUHLENBERG. 

HIS young pastor of Salem 
was the second son of the 
Patriarch of the Lutheran 
Church in America. He 
was born on January 2, 
1750, and was baptized 
three days later. Con- 
rad Weiser, Dr. Freder- 
v<^<^^(^s/f^^^aAf3£/^g i(.l^ Ziegenhagen, the 

Court preacher at London, and G. A. Francke, of 
the Institutions of Halle, were his sponsors. At 
the age of thirteen he was sent, with both his broth- 
ers, to the Halle Institutions and the German Uni- 
versities to study. The one brother subsequently 
became General Peter Muhlenberg of Revolution- 
ary fame, and the other was, with Audubon, one of 
the most celebrated naturalists in America at the 
close of the last century. He was pastor of Trinity 
Church, Lancaster. 

After a seven years' absence in Germany, Muh- 
lenberg returned to America in 1770, with his future 
brother-in-law, Dr. Kunze. On October 25 he was 
ordained at the meeting of Synod at Reading, and 
he became the assistant of his brother-in-law. Rev. 
Schulze at Stouchsburg (Tulpehocken) in Decern- 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 



93 



ber. He preached at Schaefferstown, and, as we 
have seen, became pastor at Lebanon in 1773. In 
the latter half of 1774 he became pastor of the Lu- 
theran congregation in New York. His pastorate 
there ended just before the Revolutionary war 
broke out. In February, 1776, the American Gen- 
eral Charles Lee took possession of the city with 
troops and threw up defences. Muhlenberg now 
sent his wife back to her parents in Philadelphia. 
He remained in New York no doubt preaching pa- 
triotic sermons* until the English fleet arrived, and 
then went to Philadelphia; for the British are said 
to have made no secret of the fact that they would 
hang the rebel minister as soon as they could catch 
him. He was in Philadelphia on July 4th, 1776. 
In 1777 he preached at New Hanover, and in 1778 
in the Oley mountains. He also preached in Read- 
ing occasionally. On March 2, 1779, he was 
elected to the Continental Congress. Here he was 
appointed upon the committee on the Treasury. 
He also served as chairman of the Medical Com- 
mittee which virtually made him director-general 
of the military hospitals. On November 3d, 1780, 
he was elected Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assem- 
bly, and was re-elected to the Assemblies of 1781- 
1782. While thinking of going to Georgia to take 
charge of a congregation he was elected a member 
of the Board of Censors of Pennsylvania and be- 

•Mr. Muhlenberg: was an ardent patriot, and was prominent among the 
resistants of the encroachments of the crown, while Mr. Hauslhl was 
equally ardent on the other side and prominent amoni? the royalists. 
B. W. Schmucker, D.D. The Lutheran Church Review, 1885. 



94 MUHLENBERG. 

came its president until the dissolution of that body 
in 1784. Shortly after the close of the Revolution 
it was found that the articles of confederation were 
not a good form of government for the country, 
and Muhlenberg was one of the most active in 
working for a more stable government and was 
made the President of the Convention that adopted 
the United States Constitution. As soon as the 
Constitution went into effect, Muhlenberg was 
elected as the Speaker of the First House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States. He was re-elected 
to the Second, Third and Fourth Congress, and was 
Speaker of the Third, and Chairman of the Com- 
mittee of the Whole in the Fourth Congress. In 
this capacity he cast the deciding vote in favor of 
carrying out the Jay treaty and thus prevented a 
new war with England. In 1800 he became Re- 
ceiver General of the Land Office, and died highly 
respected on the 4th of June, 1801, in Lancaster 
having reached only the age of 51 years.* 

Muhlenberg was the first but not the last young 
preacher that Salem gave up to New York and who 
became distinguished for their ability to preside 
with firm but fair hand over important parliamen- 
tary conventions. Although the pulpit is always a 
loftier post than the Speaker's Chair, yet it is pleas- 
ant to be able to associate little Lebanon, which has 



•Halle Reports Vol. I., pp. 584 and 632 give most of these facts In 
reference to Muhlenbergr. Mr. J. F. Sachse has published a beautiful 
monograph pamphlet, "A German Poem by Frederick Augustus Muh- 
lenberg," contaJning a number of facts in reference to his life. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 



95 



always been so loyal to her country, with great men 
and events connected with the Revolutionary War. 
It may not be amiss to direct our attention to the 
little town as she appeared at the outbreak of the 
Revolutionary War. 



-atestisb^ 



CHAPTER XVII. 

LEBANON AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 

WE ARE passing into stirring times. On 
the 1 6th of December, 1773, the people 
of Boston had cut open 342 chests of 
tea on the three ships that had been sent to 
America to compel the Americans to pay duty, 
and had emptied the tea into the harbor. The 
whole country from Maine to Georgia* was in 
a blaze at this time. The popular wrath at the 
thought of being compelled to pay tax on tea, was 
greater than that which had been stirred up by the 
Stamp Act of eight years earlier. In April, 1764, 
Parliament passed a series of acts against the city 
of Boston by way of retaliation. No ships were to 
be allowed to enter its port until the tea thrown 
over had been paid for. The charter of Massa- 
chusetts was annulled and her free government 
was destroyed. The courts of Massachusetts were 
not allowed to try any magistrate, revenue officer 
or soldier for murder, but he must be sent to Great 
Britain. General Gage was to supersede the Gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts and was to bring four regi- 
ments with him. On the first day of June he was 
to close the port of Boston and begin starving the 
inhabitants into subjection. He was to arrest the 

•John Fiske: The American Revolution, p. 83. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 97 

leading patriots and send them to England to be 
tried, and he was to use his own judgment in allow- 
ing the soldiers to fire upon the people. 

The news of all this came to America on the loth 
of May. On the 12th the Committees of several 
Massachusetts towns held a convention in Faneuil 
Hall and adopted a circular letter to be sent to all 
the colonies asking for their sympathy and coopera- 
tion. The greater part of the country kept the first 
of June as a day of fasting and prayer. Bells were 
muflfled and tolled in many of the churches. The 
colonies were thoroughly aroused. But Pennsyl- 
vania was hanging back. Both Franklin and Dick- 
inson thought perhaps the tea had better be paid 
for. 

Then was the blood of the Pennsylvania Ger- 
mans stirred, and little Lebanon was one of the first 
to respond to the appeal of the city of Boston and 
to send on contributions for the Bostonians who 
were suffering thus for the cause of liberty. 

On Saturday, the 25th of June,* a meeting of the 
inhabitants of Lebanon and the adjoining townships 
was held at the house of Captain Greenawalt ''to 
take into serious consideration the state of public 
affairs. Major John Philip de Haas was president 
and John Light was secretary. It was unanimously 
declared 

"i. That the late act of the British Parliament 
by which the port of Boston is shut up, is an act 

•1774. 



98 LEBANON AND THE REVOLUTION 

of oppression to the people of that city, and sub- 
versive of the rights of the inhabitants of America. 
2. That while v^e profess to be loyal subjects of 
Great Britain we shall not admit to unjust and in- 
iquitous laws, as we are not slaves but freemen. 3. 
That we are in favor of a Congress of Deputies who 
will act in behalf of the peopleforobtainingaredress 
of grievances. 4. That we unite with the inhabit- 
ants of other portions of our country in such meas- 
ures as will preserve us our rights and our Liberties. 
5. That our countrymen of the city of Boston have 
our sincerest sympathy, that their cause is the com- 
mon cause of America."* 

Philip Greenawalt, Thomas Clark, Michael Ley, 
Killian Long, and Curtis Grubb were appointed a 
committee to collect contributions for the suffering 
Bostonians. The money thus raised, together with 
flour, was sent on to Philadelphia, where it was in- 
cluded with similar contributions from other locali- 
ties and forwarded to Boston, so that it is not 
known or recorded in the annals of Boston history 
that one of the first of those to respond to her cry 
at the opening of the Revolution was the little 
Pennsylvania German town on the banks of the 
Quitopahila.** 

On this summer day at the opening of the Revo- 

•For full text of resolutions see Bgle's History of Lebanon County, 
p. 30. 

••Not long aero The Atlantic Monthly, the leading- literary monthly of 
Boston, published a very xinjust description of the Pennsylvania 
Germans, especially emphasizing: their slowness and niggardliness! 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 



99 



lution, we can imagine how things looked in the 
little town of 200* houses. The buildings were 
largely of logs, a story and a half and two stories 
high. The latch string was hanging out, and near- 
ly all the doors were open. For the last ten or 
twelve years the stone masons had been having a 
busy time of it, and the excellent building stone of 
the limestone valley was being utilized to put up 
more substantial structures than those of logs. The 
old Farmers' Hotel had been up for several years. 
Peter Kucher had erected his magnificent stone 
mansion** on the Quitopahila east of our Front st. 
in 1 76 1, It had a wide hallway and a fine staircase 
of hard wood. In 1762 the old stuccoed stone 
Mish residence in Market square was built. On the 
corner of Cumberland and Market Sts.,* John 
Philip de Haas** had his home and office from 1765 
to 1775, and many of the land transactions and 
other legal matters of the town were witnessed to 
here. 

Heinrich Rewalt, "Maurer in Lebanon," had put 
up the American House on Market St. for Caspar 
and Sabina Schnebely in 1771.* In 1772 the Re- 



•Robert Proud. 

•♦Still standing and goingr into decay. 

•Where Dr. Gloninerer'a office now is. 



••He had bougrht the lot from Steitz Fhortly after the laying out of the 
town. De Haas arrived in the year 1739. while still a boy, from Hol- 
land. Mr. A. Hess, city treasurer, is one of his descendants. 

•The year-stone bears the inscription: Gott segene dises Haus und 
alle« was da geht ein und aus. 



lOO LEBANON AND THE REVOLUTION 

formed Church had enclosed its lots in a stone wall. 
At this time very possibly the old Boughter man- 
sion,* one of the handsomest old houses in Leba- 
non, was already up, and probably the old public 
house that originally stood just across the street. 
For years already Philip Greenawalt, one of the 
town's most prominent citizens, and a member of 
the Stoever Land Company, was keeping his two 
story frame inn on the corner of Market and Cum- 
berland Sts.** 

The children were coming home from school 
either from Eighth and Willow or from Tenth and 
Walnut Sts. — for the public education of the chil- 
dren of the town was dependent upon the Lutheran 
and the Reformed schools.* 

The cherries were ripe, and it was probably at and 
after haymaking when the Boston news was stirring 
the little place. The meeting was held at the inn 
of Philip Greenawalt at Market and Ninth Sts. By 
September the first Continental Congress was meet- 
ing in Philadelphia** in Carpenter's Hall, andLeba- 
nonians must eagerly have awaited the news of 
what was being done there. Rev. Muhlenberg 
had left for New York, and during that winter Ben- 

•Recently occupied as a residence by Judgre McPherson. 

♦•Where Henry and Reinoehl's store formerly was, and Filbert's 
liquor store now Is. , 

♦The Salem school was maintained up to about the year 1842, and 
many prominent citizens of Lebanon received their early education 
there. (J. J, Emblch in Daily News.) Liater on the school was con- 
tinued, as will be described hereafter. 

**The First Troop of Philadelphia City Cavalry was formed in this 
year. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. lOi 

jamin Franklin was in London trying to influence 
the Crown. By March, '75, Frankhn made up his 
mind to return to America, and by the i8th of April 
the battle of Lexington occurred. 

On May 10 there was great excitement and alarm 
in our town. All males between the ages of 15 
and 50 were to have their names enrolled for mili- 
tary purposes. Two companies of militia had al- 
ready been organized, and were ready to serve. J. 
P. de Haas had organized one on his own responsi- 
bility and without a commission. The whole town 
took on a martial air, and there was such a strong 
sentiment for war that even the peace-loving Mo- 
ravians at Hebron "could not do otherwise than 
have their names recorded." They all went to de 
Haas.* By the Fall of 1775, Col. Philip Greena- 
walt formed a battalion, with Philip Marsteller as 
Lieutenant-Colonel. The Captain of the first com- 
pany was Caspar Stoever, of the third company, 
Philip Weiser, of the sixth company Leonard Im- 
mel. The second Lieutenant of the seventh com- 
pany was John Gossert, and of the ninth company 
John Rewalt. The ensign of the eighth company 
was George Frank. 

In the Spring of 'y6, de Haas left for Philadel- 
phia as Colonel of the first battalion. About the 
same time Peter Grubb, Jr., organized a company, 
which went to the front with Colonel Miles' bat- 
talion and participated in the disastrous battle of 

•The Hebron Diary is the source for some of the details. 



102 LEBANON AND THE REVOLUTION 

Long Island, where the Germans from Pennsylva- 
nia made such a wonderful showing for bravery 
and good marksmanship.* The drummer of this 
company was Christopher Reinoehl, who enlisted 
April 20th, 1776. Another company wholly from 
Lebanon county was that of Capt. Thos. Koppen- 
hefifer, in Col. Green's Hanover Rifle Battalion, 
1775 and '76. Peter Brightbeel and Balser Bum- 
garner were the first lieutenants, and John Wea- 
ver and Jacob Tibbins the second lieutenants. 
Among the non-commissioned men were three 
Brightbills, two of them father and son, three 
Franks, three Winters, two of them probably fa- 
ther and son, two Walmers, John and Peter Fox, 
Henry Hess, Jacob and Peter Musser, Henry and 
Adam Mark, Martain Miley, Nicolaus Snyder, 
Michael Strow, and Adam Wentling. 

On the Fourth of July, 1776, delegates from the 
officers and privates of the 53 battalions of asso- 
ciators of Pennsylvania met at Lancaster for the 
purpose of choosing two brigadier generals, and 
among the delegates present representing the ninth 
battalion were our Lieutenant Colonel Christian 
Wegman and Private Anthony Debler. The lat- 
ter was probably either the donor of the Salem 
communion service, or his son. Among the non- 
associators in the township were the Baughmans, 
Jos. Bumbarger, the Ellebargers, the Ebys, Mar- 
tin Funk, Christian Gish and son, the Snyders, the 

•See Dr. Heckman's address before The Pennsylvania German 
Society. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 103 

Horsts, the Hoovers, the Hayces, the Lights, the 
Millers, the Neffs, the Strows, the Sneveleys, and 
many others.* 

On July 7th the village of Lebanon was again 
thrown into a state of alarm, and on the 8th no- 
tice was received by a special courier that all must 
go to war by order of Congress. This is the Mora- 
vian chroniclers' way of putting the matter, but the 
announcement may really have been only the first 
tidings of the Declaration of Independence come 
to Lebanon. This naturally was a declaration of 
war and that the men would be obliged to go to the 
front. By the end of July several companies were 
encamped in Balthazer Orth's field in tents. They 
sang hymns and heard a sermon and went on their 
way to the front.** 

In the begining of August the inhabitants were 
disturbed by a rumor that the Tories and Indians 
were coming over the mountains; but, instead, in 
December came 1000 Hessian prisoners, with many 
Tories marching on their way to Reading. 

On January ist, 1777, the Lebanons were rejoic- 
ing that Washington had crossed the Delaware and 
taken Trenton. But by the following May the pub- 
lic spirit was not encouraging. There were after 
all quite a number in the town who were opposed 



•For most of these facts we are indebted to the rolls given in Egle's 
History of Lebanon County. 

•♦Here is a pathetic scene often repeated since then: "July 30, in the 
forenoon came Bait. Orth to take leave; also, Adam Orth with his son, 
John. John came to take leave. He is yet a child, and it is therefore 
advisable to get his discharge. Proposals were made. They would give 
everything to get him free. It was a mournful sight." 



I04 LEBANON AND THE REVOLUTION 

to the Revolutionary War, and there were others 
who, though favorable to it, were opposed to any 
boisterous demonstration of Americanism. They 
were the ones who were stopped on the streets and 
asked to ''Hurrah for Congress," and who, on re- 
fusing to do so, were violently punished. On May 
the 5th the people met to elect their officers and 
on the 19th and 20th the men were enrolled or 
draughted into classes in the militia, but the affair 
was not popular and most of the inhabitants were 
not present.* It was on the 5th of May that 
Thomas Wharton, in reality the first Revolutionary 
War Governor of Pennsylvania, was elected. His 
headquarters were at Lancaster. By the close of 
August 340 Hessian prisoners arrived in Lebanon 
in charge of Colonel Grubb and the most of them 
were kept in the Moravian church at Hebron to 
the great dissatisfaction and disgust of the pastor 
'there. Part of them, perhaps, were placed in the 
Reformed church, and on October 29th news came 
that they were to be removed from Hebron to our 
log church. But as our church was wanted for a 
powder-magazine, the transfer was not made.* Dr. 
Egle's History tells us that the powder-magazine 
in Lebanon "was in an old building on Tenth street, 
a short distance west of Quitopahila Creek, known 
as 'Gibson's town.' The magazine was afterwards 
turned into a barracks, the ammunition removed to 



•Hebron Diary. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 



105 



Lancaster." It took twenty wagons, making from 
four to six trips each to remove the ammunition. 

By this time it will be seen that Lebanon was 
comparatively near to the heart of the Revolu- 
tionary War, as it was also to the seat of govern- 
ment. It was much nearer in fact to the scenes of 
greatest hardship than many localities without 
Pennsylvania, which boast largely of Revolution- 
ary fame. As Dr. Egle says, ''During the war of 
the Revolution Lebanon was an important place.* 

"It was the depot of supplies of provisions and the 
storehouse for ammunition during the occupancy 
of Philadelphia by the British. A large number of 
gunsmiths were collected here at work for the con- 
tinental army. Shoes especially were manufactured 
and large quantities of leather tanned. The people 
were exceedingly patriotic and there was always a 
recruiting officer stationed in Lebanon to enlist sol- 
diers to fill up the depleted companies in the ser- 
vice." 

"The war continued and the demand for volun- 
teers was promptly met by the inhabitants of Leb- 
anon. While the major portion of the male popula- 
tion between the ages of sixteen and fifty-three 
were in the Continental service, others were chil- 
dren and old men, armed with their trusty rifles, 
were ranging along the northern frontier, guarding 
it from the marauding Indians and their white al- 
lies. 



•Pare 1»4. 



Io6 LEBANON AND THE REVOLUTION 

'The inhabitants did not only volunteer prompt- 
ly, but gave of their substance, and the Earlys, 
Henrys, Kreiders, Millers, Meilys, Immels, Orths, 
Sheaffers, and others, not only contributed to the 
patriot army, but hauled to Valley Forge during 
that terrible winter of 1777-78 flour and meat, with 
such articles of clothing as would be of service to 
half-clad soldiers. At several tanneries in the 
neighborhood leather was prepared and all who 
could make shoes assisted in the work of supply- 
ing all those who were barefooted in the American 
camp. This was all done cheerfully, freely and 
very often gratuitously. The men, women, and 
children of Heidelburg, Lebanon and Bethel were 
imbued with patriotic devotion, and did noble work 
for their distressed defenders. Too much praise 
cannot be awarded them, and we wish we had the 
names of those brave women of Lebanon who spun 
the w^ool and wove coverlets for the army, and to 
whom in a letter in our possession written Col. 
Marstellar says: 'God bless the good women of 
Milbach.' The brave women of the Revolution 
who cultivated the soil while their husbands and 
fathers were battling for their rights and their lib- 
erties deserve loving remembrance on the page of 
History." 

Among the of^cers of the Second Battalion, 
Lancaster County, 1 780-1783, were Lieutenant- 
Colonel, John Gloninger; Major, Baltzer Orth; 
First Company — Captain, David Krause; Lieu- 
tenant, Jacob Embich; Third Company — Captain, 



OLD SALEM CHURCH. 



107 



Jacob Meily, Lieutenant, Jacob Risser; Ensign, 
Henry Snevely. The ensign of the Fourth Com- 
pany was Martin Meily and the Lieutenant of the 
Eighth Company was Peter Ensminger. 

Lebanon was rarely at very great distance from 
Washington and his army. During the dark days at 
Valley Forge (winter of 1777-78) the gloom must 
have reflected itself back to the little town in the 
valley. In fact at this time Lebanon was surround- 
ed with signs of the war. General Wayne's com- 
mand was wintering at Mt. Joy. Congress was in 
session at York* and the State Assembly and Ex- 
ecutive Council were meeting at York. Philadel- 
phia had been occupied by the British in 1777. The 
Patriarch Muhlenberg and his son were obliged to 
flee because of their patriotic utterances; the great 
Lutheran church there was taken possession of by 
the British, the pews were at once torn out, and the 
building transformed into an army hospital.** 

However, the Revolutionary War did not pre- 
vent the town from making great progress, and 
from attending to its own internal affairs during 
that period. Just before the war, on July 17, 1773, 



•When Waahlngrton was defeated on the Brandywine In September, 
1777, Congress fled from Philadelphia, and came first to Lancaster and 
then to York. 

♦•After the e^'acuation of Philadelphia by the British in June, 1778, 
the Church continued to be used as a hospital by the American au- 
thorities, until 1782. when it again came Into possession of the Church 
corporation with nothingr but the four walls standing. 

On December 13. 1781, in the presence of the American Con^rress, a 
thanks^vinB service was held in It in cedebration of the surrender ot 
Lord Comwallls. 



Io8 LEBANON AND THE REVOLUTION 

the first fire company* in the place was organized, 
with George Hoke as president, and toward the 
close of the war, on February 22, 1780, another 
company, the Union, was organized with Judge 
Philip Gloninger as president. The tax list of Leb- 
anon Township for 1780 shows that there were about 
350 taxable persons in the township and about 100 
untaxable inmates. There were 17 flour mills, 25 
liquor stills, one brewery, two tanyards, a forge, 
two pleasure carriages and over twenty negro 
slaves in the township. In the list the number of 
acres** owned by each taxable is given, and its min- 
ute examination would be quite interesting. The 
winter of 1779-80 was a bitter cold one. It was 
known as "The Hard Winter."* 

Frost penetrated the ground from four to five 
feet, ears of horned cattle and the feet of hogs were 
frostbitten. Squirrels perished in their holes. The 
evils of the Continental Currency were beginning 
to manifest themselves and hard times were coming 
on in many places. 

One event which should not be forgotten was the 
abolition of slavery by Pennsylvania in 1780. It 
was passed by a vote of 34 ayes to 21 nays. Its 
passage was not due to, as is commonly stated, the 
Quakers of Pennsylvania. Many of the Pennsyl- 
vania Quakers, like the Puritans of New England,** 

•The Cedar Fire Company. 

••As well as of houses, lots, horses, cows, and the total valuation. 

•Washington was in winter quarters at Norristown. 

••Dr. Esrle's History. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 109 

were pecuniarily interested in the slave traffic them- 
selves, and it was only when the war legislature got 
into power, and the Quakers were in large minority, 
that the measure passed. Of the slaves in Lebanon 
county John Bassler owned two, Thomas Bassler 
one, Robert Patten three, Curtis Grubb about 
twenty-three, Adam Orth one, and Christopher 
Kucher one. 




CHAPTER XVIII. 



REV. WM, KURTZ. 



AFTER Frederick Muhlenberg left Salem 
in the summer of 1774, the Revolution- 
ary agitations were close at hand. Pas- 
tor John Caspar Stoever, now 70 years of age, was 
still ministering at Lebanon, though he made no 
entries in the Muhlenberg record book.* 

From 1775 to 1779 Rev. William Kurtz still was 
serving the congregations at New Holland and 
Strasburg, in Lancaster county, and he probably 
came to Lebanon at least three or four times a year, 
if not oftener and ministered to the congregation 
here. Even if he resided at New Holland, as is said 
to have been the case, yet his old home was with his 
brother at Stouchsburg, and he may have spent 



•This first record book is, in the judgment of the •writer, the finest of 
all Old Salem's records. It is large, made of pure linen rag paper, well 
but not clumsily bound, and the mode of keeping it gives information 
in a better manner than is often the case in more modem records. The 
book must have been expensive when purchased, but the constant use of 
over a century has justified the outlay. It is poor policy for a congre- 
gation to consider economy as a leading factor in purchases of this 
kind. The best is always cheapest. Dr. Lochmann's neat handwriting 
for 21 years adds to the beauty of the book. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH m 

part of the time there.* There has been a differ- 
ence of view as to exactly when Kurtz's pastorate 
began at Lebanon. Some have supposed that it 
could not have been before 1779, but the records 
show that he administered baptisms from Febru- 
ary, 1775, and communion on i8th Trinity Sunday, 
1774; Sunday Rogate and the Fall of 1775, i8th 
Trinity, 1776; Jubilate, 1777; three times in 1778, 
and twice in 1779. But he has recorded no funer- 
als until 1779, an evidence, perhaps, that he did not 
reside in the neighborhood until that time. 

In 1779, on the 13th of May, the town of Leb- 
anon was filled with very extraordinary tidings. 
Rev. J. Caspar Stoever had an appointment to con- 
firm his catechumens at Hill Church. Not being 
well, he asked them to come to his home at Sun- 
nyside. While he was administering the rite of con- 
firmation to the class he suddenly dropped down 
dead. Thus ended the career of this hardy pioneer 
at the age of 75 years. His death brought about 
a great change in church affairs at Lebanon. Two 
weeks after it occurred there "came** a gentleman 
and said that he was one of the captured [Hessian] 
oflficers, that he served as field preacher in the 
Brunswick Regiment, that he intended to take the 
charge of Rev. Stoever, deceased, and that he had 
given the people three weeks to consider. His 
name is Melsheimer."* 



•"WTien Caspar Stoever first preached in the Lebanon Valley he also 
lived at New Holland. 

••Hebron Diary. 

•Hebron Chronicler. 



112 REV. WM. KURTZ 

But the people did not settle the matter in three 
weeks. Both ministers were at the meeting of the 
Ministerium in October at Tulpehocken. Mr. 
Melsheimer desired to be received into the body. 
The Ministerium resolved, that "our friendship 
was not to be denied, but offered to him; but as to 
receiving him, we would wait awhile, partly in order 
to learn to know him better, partly to give him time 
to obtain his dismissal, as this was a necessary con- 
dition for his reception nem contrad.^'"^ 

The matter of a pastor dragged along through 
the summer of 1779** and the following winter 
of 1780 without settlement. Rev. Kurtz meantime 
officiating, however, probably with greater fre- 
quency.* 

The Reformed congregation appears to have 
been more enterprising just at this period, and in 
the Spring of 1780 they bought an additional lot of 
ground, said to be the one on which the present 
church stands, from Philip Greenwalt for thirty 
pounds. But on the 15th of August the congre- 
gation experienced a sudden loss in the death of its 
pastor, the Rev. John Conrad Bucher. He expired 
at Annville while in the act of performing a mar- 

•Mr. Melsheimer was received subsequently and became a faithful 
member of the Ministerium. He was, we believe, one of its secretaries. 

•♦There was considerable dissatisfaction this Pall at the taxation ren- 
dered neccMary by the war. The "Chronicler" says: "Sept. 16. Adam 
Orth, Kucher and Uhler go about writing up people's property to tax 
them." 

•This Spring the town was again put into suspense in regard to war 
matters. The Hebron "Chronicler" reports on May 15: "Again great 
alarm. Tomorrow a battalion shall meet In the village. A fine of £20 
for each who do not attend." 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



113 



riage ceremony there. The affection of the people 
for their deceased pastor was so great that they car- 
ried his dead body on a bier all the way from Ann- 
ville to Lebanon. 

It came to be the Fall of 1780 and the Halle 
Reports still say that Rev. Kurtz ''is without of- 
fice and support but intends to move to Lebanon 
where John Caspar vStoever died the year before." 
It is probable that Pastor Kurtz did take up his 
residence in Lebanon shortly after this time. 

A martial air was pervading the whole town this 
year. On the 12th of February news came that 600 
soldiers were to be quartered in the town and with- 
in a radius of five miles, and some actually arrived. 
By the 23d, the village was very full of the military. 
On July 2d the third-class militia from Lebanon 
were notified to report at Lancaster. On August 
20th the fourth-class militia were ordered to Lan- 
caster to guard prisoners. On September 23d or- 
ders came for the fifth, sixth and seventh-class mili- 
tia to leave. But fortunately the decisive event of 
the Revolutionary War was at hand. On the 19th 
of October Lord Cornwallis surrendered at York- 
town* and a few days afterward the honest old Ger- 
man watchman, pacing the streets of Philadelphia 
before dawn, startled the sleepers of the city by 
shouting, "Basht dree o'glock, und Gornvallis ish 
dakendt." A courier from General Washington 
arrived in Philadelphia that morning and after din- 



•7247 soldiers and 840 seamen marched out with colors furled while the 
band played "The World Turned Upside Down." 



114 ^^^- ^^- ^^^^Z 

ner Congress held a service of prayer and thanks- 
giving in the Lutheran church.* It took several 
days longer for the news to reach Lebanon. But 
when the news did come, the town celebrated the 
event in "glorious" style, to the distaste of the non- 
combatant Hebron chronicler. He says, October 
25th: "The bells at the Lutheran and Reformed 
churches commenced ringing, and frightful firing 
which continued into the day, also at several times 
during the day." The reason given was that an ex- 
press had arrived at midnight with the new^s at 
Christ. Kucher's, that the English Gen. Cornwallis 
with all his men were taken prisoners in Virginia." 
This great battle accomplished far more for the 
country and for his own community than the chron- 
icler, chiefly solicitous about being allowed to re- 
main undisturbed in his worship for the present 
moment, supposed. There are times when only 
war brings abiding peace, and those who like Wash- 
ington cheerfully ofifer up life and property for the 
cause because they understand its righteousness and 
greatness, are often not appreciated by those who 
are more intent upon present comfort and freedom 
from annoyance in personal and local afifairs.** 

The summer of 1782 was remarkable in Leba- 
non because of a great drought. By the beginning 
of October the distress on account of the scarcity 
of water was indescribable. Far and near all was 



*John Fiske, The American Revolution, Vol. II. 

•♦These remarks are applicable because several of the most patriotic 
of Lebanon's citizens during the Revolution suffered greatly from mis- 
construction put upon their motives. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



115 



dried up. The Hebron chronicler writes : 'The like 
we have not experienced in Pennsylvania. Most 
wells are without water and most of the (flour) 
mills are stopped." 

By 1 78 1 Rev. Kurtz was settled, though not al- 
together established in Lebanon.* In 1782 H. M. 
Muhlenberg writes to Dr. Freylinghausen in Ger- 
many that ''the younger Mr. Kurtz is still with sev- 
eral congregations in and about Lebanon. But 
very likely a change may soon take place with him." 
For some reason he does not seem to have been 
able to command the full co-operation of the 
whole congregation here. From 1784 on "Rev. 
William Kurtz from Lebanon" is in regular attend- 
ance at Synod. In 1785 a synodical table of sta- 
tistics shows that Wilhelm Kurtz in Lebanon had 
baptized 170, and confirmed 80 persons, and had 
had 660 communicants during the past year. 

These figures are startling. They represent the 
work of an immense congregation, and if they were 
to be taken without explanation, Old Salem after 
over a century's opportunity for growth and ex- 
pansion, would have to blush for having accom- 
plished so very little during a century. But we 
must remember that Rev. Kurtz had a number of 
congregations and that the highest number of com- 
municants he ever had in Lebanon at one time was 
120 in 1779, and 104.** The strength Old Salem 



•The roll of Synod shows that Rev. William Kurtz from Lebanon was 
present In 1781- 
••In 1782. 



Il6 REV. WM. KURTZ 

parted with in the establishment of other congrega- 
tions during the century is also to be taken into con- 
sideration. 

Muhlenberg praises Pastor Kurtz as being "al- 
ways diligent and active in his calling and office, and 
at the same time a good manager.'* Mr. Kurtz had 
a splendid education. He was an orphan. For 15 
years he had been trained in the Halle Orphan 
House in Germany. He studied theology under 
Dr. Knapp from 1750 to 1753 and arrived in Amer- 
ica in 1754. Muhlenberg took him into his own 
house at New Providence and gave him opportu- 
nity to become familiar with the duties of the pas- 
toral office. He also served Muhlenberg as his 
amanuensis. In the year 1756 we find him as a 
teacher of the free school established in York, but 
already in the following year he is a catechist in 
the Tohicon under Muhlenberg's supervision. He 
comes to Philadelphia in July, 1757, and takes part 
in the burial of Pastor Brunnholtz. In 1760 he is 
examined before the Ministerium because several 
congregations in Heidelberg, etc., had earnestly 
pled that he should be made their preacher. After 
prayer he had to turn to the third chapter of First 
Corinthians and explain the same in the Latin lan- 
guage, which was done very satisfactorily. Then 
two Hebrew Psalms were placed before him and he 
was desired to translate them at once into Latin 
according to the true meaning of the words. This 
was also done very fluently. The Lutheran Swe- 
dish provost was pleased and said that he did not 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



117 



expect this in the American wilderness, and then 
began to examine the candidate in Latin on some 
of the articles of faith. Thus the examinations con- 
tinued until all testified that he had showed his com- 
petency. Some written questions were given him, 
the answers of which he was to hand in at the fu- 
ture Minister's Conference.* 

He was licensed to preach and in 1761 was or- 
dained at Lancaster. He became his brother's as- 
sistant at Stouchsburg, and took charge of Stouchs- 
burg and Bernville in 1763-64, while his brother 
was away at St. Michael's, in Germantown. He 
became pastor at New Holland and served it in 
connection with Strasburg, from 1775- 1779. The 
Synod desired him to take congregations in Berks 
county, Mosellim and others. In the Fall of 1780 
he is without ofRce and support but intends to 
move to Lebanon, where John Caspar Stoever died 
the year before. He becomes pastor there 
and remains so a number of years. He served as 
secretary of Synod. Unfortunately in his older 
years he held unorthodox views, for instance, 
that the apostles did not teach aright in certain par- 
ticulars. Muhlenberg rebuked him and he was 
humbled. Helmuth writes of him in his diary un- 
der December 22, 1792, that his time in Lebanon 
is over but that he is unable to get any other 
charge. 

*Halle Reports. Vol. II. 




Fac-simile of Baptisms of the lleylmann Family in Hill Church Record of 1733. 
Set' p. 17 and foot note p. 31" 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE PARSONAGE OF I783 AND SOME OF THE MEMBERS 
OF THAT DAY. 



THE Lutheran congregation built a parson- 
age in 1783. This is a new discovery, but 
it is unquestionable. The Rev. Wm. 
Kurtz had a growing family of children 
and it is quite possible that one of the reasons, if 
not the chief one, why he did not remove to Leb- 
anon for so long a period was that there was no 
house for him. This new parsonage was a stone 
building and it was begun probably in the Fall of 
1782. It is interesting to note that the Reformed 
congregation also bought a parsonage for their 
pastor in 1783. There seems to have been a sort 
of friendly rivalry in property matters between these 
two and only congregations in the place for many 



OLD SALEM CHURCH ^jg 

years. What the one had, the other thought it 
must have also. On January 20th, 1783, George 
Reinoehl paid fifteen pounds to Frantz Behler in 
the name of the Lutheran congregation for break- 
ing stone for the parsonage. About the same time 
Christopher Uhler bought 42 pounds of nails for 
£3. 3s. for the parsonage from George Heister. The 
nails did not sufifice and on April 15th Mr. Uhler 
bought 50 more pounds and 2000 sprigs from Abra- 
ham Diehl. On May 7th and later Mr. Uhler paid 
ofif George Bleistein, George Hess and several other 
masons for ''masonry which they put on the par- 
sonage." On October 29th he paid off Jacob Foll- 
mer for hauling for the parsonage. Early in No- 
vember he paid off B. Boyer and Bartel Wenger 
for masonry work. By February 5th he had paid 
Christopher Embich over £13, in full for his share 
of carpenter work and £3 for hauling for the par- 
sonage. Jacob Embich also received £7. los. on the 
same day. Frantz Beler was paid for breaking 
stone, and finally in November, 1784, Michael 
Stroh received "six Pound in full for Burds and 
Shantling I Sawet for the Lutheran Congregation 
in Lebanon." 

Where this parsonage was located is diflficult to 
settle. It may have been the first story (the stone 
part) of the old parsonage at Eighth and Spring 
alley. It scarcely could have been located on the 
corner of Eighth and Willow streets, where the 
present church stands. 



I20 PARSONAGE AND MEMBERS OF 1783 

Persons have often been puzzled as to the signi- 
ficance of the date 1788 on one of the upper panels 
of the Willow Street Front. It is possible that 
this is the year when the lot on the corner of 
Eighth and Willow streets actually passed into the 
possession (not ownership) of the congregation. 

Among the communicants whose names are re- 
corded during the pastorate of Rev. Kurtz for the 
first time are John Gottlieb GraefT, Messrs. Wey- 
rich and Menges, Jacob Vogt, John George, 
Michael Beier and John Sauer, in 1775. In 1776 
we find that Peter Ritcher and Col. PhiHp Marstel- 
lar communed. In 1778 John Gerberich and Chris- 
topher Waltz, and in 1779 Conrad Reinoehl and 
Jacob Braun, and in 1780 George Hess were added 
to the communion list. In 1781 Henrich Rade, 
Henrich Reinoel, Peter Schindel, Christopher Uh- 
ler, H. Klein and Bernard Sauer, and in 1781, Pe- 
ter Miller, Regina McKondle, Martin Uhler, Peter 
Schmidt, Conrad Schmidt, Adam Reis, and George 
Reinoel came to the Lord's Table. In 1783 Mrs. 
A. M. Schnee was confirmed and A. C. Wagner, 
Jacob Mill, John Schnee, Michael Uhler, Christian 
Albrecht and Ulrich Boeckle communed. Mean- 
time John Nicholas Entzminger had died in 1781 
at the age of 49 years, and Rev. Kurtz preached 
the funeral sermon on Phil. 1 121-24', Martin 
Franck had been thrown from a horse and met his 
death through the fall, though still a young man 
of 30. Maria Gebhard and Henry Klein had passed 
away, each reaching the age of 71 years. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 12 1 

In 1782 the wife of Jacob Stieb died and though 
she was Reformed, was buried on the Lutheran 
cemetery. Peter Gerhart, a young man aged 25 
years, also died. After 1783 Rev. Kurtz, for some 
reason, recorded no more funerals. 

We give here in full the first recorded list of cat- 
echumens of the Lebanon church. The class num- 
bered 13, and they were confirmed on Whitsunday, 
May 19, 1782, by Rev William Kurtz, when he ad- 
ministered the Holy Communion : 

Abraham Doebler, IT years old. 
Abraham Land, In his 16th year. 
WllUain Kurtz, in his 16th year. 
Adam Menges, In his 15th year. 
Jacob Schnee, in his 15th year. 
Philip Bibel, in his 15th year. 
Peter Schlndel, affe 16 years. 
Friedrlch Trump. 
Maria Dorstln, In her 14th year. 
Ells Fetzberger, in her 16th year. 
Catharine Fetzberger, in her 14th year. 
Ells Schmlthin. In her 16th year. 
Regina Pohlmann, in her 16th year. 

In 1784 Rev. Kurtz had a class of 14 catechu- 
mens among whom were Philip Fisher, John 
Gueseman, David Huber, J. George Boeckle, Lea 
Ritter and Elizabeth Rohland. Two years later he 
had a class of 25, among whom were George 
Trump, George Schantz, John Huber and Peter 
Miller. 

In the beginning of 1784 Rev. Kurtz baptized a 
child of Peter Schindel, in summer a child of Adam 
Reis and Jacob, son of John Schnee, and at the 
close of the year he baptized a child of Philip Greeci- 
walt, and nearly two years later a child of Mr. 



122 PARSONAGE AND MEMBERS OF 1783 

Greenwalt's son. In 1785-87 he baptized children 
of Jacob Buecher, Adam Weiss, George Reinoel, 
and Adam Reis. 

In 1786 Rev. Wilhelm Kurtz, from Lebanon, was 
the senior pastor in attendance at the meeting of 
Synod in Philadelphia.* In June, 1789, the Synod 
of Pennsylvania, for the first time recorded, met 
at Lebanon."^* ''As most members of the Evangel- 
ical Lutheran Ministerium arrived on the day pre- 
ceding, they went to church on the 7th of June, the 
Festival of the Trinity. Dr. Muhlenberg preached 
in the morning on the Festival Gospel, Pastor 
Goering in the afternoon on I. Tim. 4:16, and Dr. 
Helmuth in the evening on I. Sam. 3:11-15, be- 
fore a numerous audience and with much blessing. 
On the 8th, when the body opened for business, 
14 ministers were present. Dr. Muhlenberg was 
president and the Rev. Mr. Melsheimer secretary. 

A letter from the Manheim and Mt. Joy congre- 
gations was read, in which they petitioned the Min- 
isterium for a pastor. Similar letters were read 
from other congregations. A sad case of disci- 
pline occupied the most of the time of the mem- 
bers of the body. At the close of Synod the min- 
isters heard a sermon on John 10:14, 15. After 
the sermon, the Lebanon pastor thanked the min- 
isters for the love they had shown the Lebanon 
congregation. 

On Whitsunday, May 27, 1787, a large class of 

••'Documentary History," p. 207 
••"Documentaxy History," p. 225. 



OLD SALEM CHRUCH 



123 



25 catechumens had been confirmed, among whom 
were Martin and Leonard Zimmerman, aged 21 
and 20 years; PhiHp Kucher, David Fisher, PhiHp 
MeiHe, Jacob Braun, J. Ritscher, Christina Ferns- 
ler, E. Shindel, Regina Uhler, Sabina MeiUe, 
Marg. Schnee, each ranging from 14 to 17 years in 
age. At this communion Christopher Kucher and 
PhiHp Fernsler participated, and the following year, 
1798, the roll records the name of A. Margut. 

In April, 1790, Pastor Kurtz baptized a child of 
David Kraus, John Gloninger being sponsor; on 
July 4th a son of Hugh Black; on September 20th, 
John Christian, son of George George, Christopher 
Uhler and wife being sponsors; and on September 
25, John Philip, child of Philip Fernsler and wife, 
the sponsor being Philip Fernsler, Sr.* 

On Good Friday, April 22, 179 1, a very large 
class of ^J catechumens was examined in the pres- 
ence of the congregation, and confirmed on the fol- 
lowing Easter. Among them w^ere Gust. Kurtz, 
Geo. Reinoel, aged 15, and Conrad Reinoel, aged 
14, Jacob Roland, aged 17, Jacob and John Frie- 
dle, Jacob Rieger and Mrs. Mary Doebler. 

In May, 1792, there was a class of 26 catechu- 
mens, among whom were Emanuel Meile, John 
Uhler and Frederick Stoever. In April, 1793, a 
small class of nine catechumens was confirmed, in- 
cluding Henry Imboden, Tobias and Nicolas Ul- 



•It should be noticed that we have here three g-eneratlons of the Ferns- 
ler family, the old grandfather, Philip married by Stoever, the son, 
Philip, and the grandson, John Philip, 



124 PARSONAGE AND MEMBERS OF 1783 

rich, John Stoever and Michael Reinoehl. This 
was the last year of Rev. Kurtz's pastorate, and 
there were only thirty-five communicants, includ- 
ing the catechumens. Among them were Peter 
Ritscher and wife, Geo. Reinol, wife and Geo. Jr., 
M. Fernsler, Geo. Nagel, Fr. Jenser and Jacob Em- 
bich and wife. 

The last baptism administered by Pastor Kurtz 
was on March 12, 1794, and the child was Jacob 
Embich.* 



•It would be both tedioua and impossible to mention more than a brief 
selection of the names foimd In the Church Record under any pastorate. 



c 



CHAPTER XX. 

CHRISTOPHER UHLER. 

HRISTOPHER UHLER was the master- 
builder of Lebanon. It was he who super- 
vised the erection of the parsonage referred 

• ':f'^<i//£-f^\ ^^ ^" ^^^ ^^^^ chapter and it was 
'^ *' -J — '*' he who built both the Reformed 
and the Lutheran churches that have endured so 
well after a century's use. 

Throughout his life he was more or less of a pub- 
lic character. As a young man, in the 60s, when 
the Stoever Land Company was selling lots, he, 
with Christopher Embich, who also was a carpen- 
ter, invested in these lots, buying and selling again 
as opportunity offered. During the Revolutionary 
War, though a civilian, he was an ardent patriot, 
and was one of that band of patriots. Col. Philip 
Marstellar, Col. Philip Greenwalt,* Christopher 
Kucher, Quartermaster Peter Miller, Captain Cas- 
par Stoever, Gen. J. Ph. de Haas,** Captain and En- 
sign Meily, Lieutenant Ensminger, Ensign Em- 
bich, and many others who were more or less di- 
rectly connected with the Old Lutheran church. 

Mr. Uhler aided the government in a civil capac- 
ity. Both the Province of Pennsylvania and the 
Continental Congress were in the greatest finan- 
cial stress from the years '79 on. The Continental 

•Who, thougrh Reformed, had the Lutheran pastor baptize some of his 
children. 

••Whose wife was a reerular communicant at Salem. 



126 CHRISTOPHER UHLER 

Currency continued to sink steadily in value. The 
army was not only without money, but without 
clothing and provisions, and it became necessary 
to lay taxes on those who owned property at home, 
for the conduct of operations in the field, and Mr. 
Uhler was one of the men appointed to do the 
work for Lebanon. It was exceedingly unpleas- 
ant, especially in the case of persons who were out 
of sympathy with the war, and many must have 
been the complaints and hard words showered 
down by those who had no comprehension or con- 
cern for the general necessity. In this spirit the 
Hebron chronicler writes, September i6th, 1779: 
"Adam Orth, Kucher and Uhler go about writing 
up people's property to tax them," and again on 
June 13, 1 78 1, 'The taking of property for tax 
has begun again." 

A little later Mr. Uhler was in the thick of the 
battle which Lebanon county made against being 
united with Dauphin when it was discovered that 
the county-seat would be located in the extreme 
western corner of the new county. 

Soon after the Revolution the people living in 
the Lebanon Valley and in fact all those north of 
the Cornwall Hills, wished and asked for the erec- 
tion of a new county because of the inconvenience 
of attending the courts in Lancaster and of having 
their business transacted so far away. In 1782 they 
sent petitions to the Assembly to this effect. But 
when it was discovered that the Assembly was de- 
termined to locate the new county-seat just as far 



OLD SALEM CHRUCH 1 27 

away from Lebanon as Lancaster was, there was 
great excitement among the people. Remon- 
strances were sent to the Assembly from Lebanon, 
Heidelberg and Bethel townships. In 1783 Chris- 
topher Uhler was elected one of the County Com- 
missioners of Lancaster county. The County Com- 
missioners "declined to assess and levy any Monies 
on the Inhabitants for the purpose of building a 
Court House and Prison at a Place so inconveni- 
ent, as the Commissioners and Assessors are well ac- 
quainted of the General Dissatisfaction of the In- 
habitants of the said County to pay any such As- 
sessments."* 

It was hoped that the new county-seat of Dau- 
phin would after all in the end be removed to Leb- 
anon. But the assembly was inflexible. Among 
the questions raised was whether Christopher Uh- 
ler, whose residence on the division of the county 
of Lancaster, was disqualified thereby, from 
acting as a Commissioner for the county of Lan- 
caster. On September 15th, 1785, Wm. Brad- 
ford, law-judge, of Philadelphia, handed down an 
opinion "that the residence of the said Christopher 
Uhler is no legal cause to remove him from his of- 
fice."** Mr. Uhler, as County Commissioner 
bought the lot opposite the Salem church, on 
Eighth street, on which the Bowman house is now 
built, as County Commissioner and to be used for 

•Memorial to the President of the Supreme Council of Pennsylvania 
signed by all the inhabitants of Lebanon, Heidelberg' and Bethel town- 
ships. 

**A copy of Judge Bradford's opinion Is before the writer. 



128 CHRISTOPHER UHLER 

county purposes. The agitation did not cease when 
the Assembly compelled the Commissioners to levy 
taxes for Dauphin, and finally culminated in the 
erection of Lebanon county in the following cen- 
tury. 

Mr. Uhler was baptized,* confirmed and mar- 
ried by Rev. Caspar Stoever. He was a regular 
communicant member of our church under Rev. 
Kurtz, and was the delegate of the congregation 
to the meeting of Synod at Philadelphia in 1795. 
From 1794 to 1796 he was an elder of the congre- 
gation, and was the treasurer of the congregation 
from 1794 until 1804. When we remember that 
Mr. Uhler was both chairman of the Building Com- 
mittee of our congregation when the present edi- 
fice was built and master builder, and also treas- 
urer of the congregation we see what great service 
he performed and what large responsibility he car- 
ried for its sake. 

Before the Salem structure was begun he had 
a valuable experience in the erection of the present 
Tabor Reformed church, of which he was the car- 
penter and builder. This fine structure was begun 
in June, 1792, but was not dedicated until May 
8, 1796, at which time our own building was al- 
ready begun. Mr. Uhler's bill for the Reformed 
structure was £762, 13s., 7d., and the stone ma- 
sons' was £436, OS, id. All the bills summed up 
the amount of £1338, 3s., 6d.** 

•MartA 25, 1741. 

••History of Tabor Reformed Church," pp. 31 and 32. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

HOW YOUNG GEORGE LOCHMANN GOT TO LEBANON. 




A 



S early as 1792, after some 
years of private mention, 
the desirability of fur- 
nishing Lebanon with a new 
pastor was brought formally 
before the Synod. The body 
met at Lancaster on the 3d of 
June. On the 5th, letters refer- 
ring to Lebanon were read and 
it was resolved that as soon as a suitable 
opportunity offered to transfer Rev. Mr. Wil- 
liam Kurtz, the congregation shall be free 
to extend a call to another preacher; that, 
in the meantime, the congregations which have no 
preacher be served as much as circumstances per- 
mit by the neighboring preachers. From the tenor 
of this resolution it would seem that at least one 
of the reasons why Rev. Kurtz could not handle 
matters in Lebanon was because his health was too 
delicate to attend to the outlying congregations, 
including the Hill church and Manheim. 

Evidently nothing was done for a whole year 
and when Synod met in Philadelphia in 1793, let- 
ters were again on hand from Lebanon, the Berg- 
kirche, and Manheim, in which they requested that 
they be furnished with a preacher. Synod then re- 



I30 YOUNG GEORGE LOCHMANN 

solved 'That Candidate Dill shall visit the congre- 
gations, and that he be proposed to them as their 
preacher."* Candidate Dill** handed in a sermon 
and favorable testimonials at this meeting of Syn- 
od, but whether he ever appeared at Lebanon or 
not, or why he was not chosen is not known to the 
writer. However by the time another year rolled 
around and another June arrived, the Synod meet- 
ing at Reading, found that Rev. Kurtz* had re- 
moved from Lebanon, and that there is "a call from 
Lebanon, Bergkirche, Campelestadt and Ziegel- 
kirche for Mr. Lochman."** After this the papers 
relating to this and other calls were duly considered; 



•Document. Hist. p. 262. 

••He had come over from Germany prior to 1791. 

•The Sy-tiodical roll reads "Wllhelm Kurtz, from Jonestown." 

••The following, foimd unexpectedly, is the only document of the Leb- 
anon people to Mr. Lochmann, known to be in existence: 

APPEAL AND LETTER TO MR. LOCHMANN WRITTEN FROM 
LEBANON. 

Esteemed friend:— With the bearer of this. Tobias Stoever will deliver 
to you an appeal from four congreg'ations as you will plainly per- 
ceive; we have written to the congregation of Bindnagel's church that, 
if they wish to join themselves to us, that they shall institute an elec- 
tion for a Preacher and also notify us as soon as possible as to how 
much they can contribute to his yearly support, you have left us know 
by word of mouth before him that you will stand by us as their and 
our preacher, you will also see in a letter which Mr. Stoever brings to 
them and which you have already before this sent to us tha.t it Is 
signed by different ones of your best members in which they have left 
us know that they are willing to contribute twenty-four or twenty-five 
pounds to the Preacher's support. 

This affair cannot be arranged immediately because Harner's time 
will not expire until next Augrust as you wished. You will kindly send to 
us a short form of your letter written to the Ministerium, with Mr. 
Stoever. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



131 



on June i8th it was resolved that Candidate Loch- 
man ''be orally examined by the Ministerium this 
afternoon from 3 to 3.30."* The next day the 
Ministerium appointed ''George Lochman for the 
congregations in Lebanon, Campelestadt, the 
Bergkirche and the Ziegelkirche.** 

This was on the i8th of June. After making prep- 
arations for several weeks, Candidate Lochman 
arrived here on August ist, and preached his Intro- 
ductory Sermon on the 4th of August, 1794.* Now 
the pastor was here under whom the congregation 
was to develop from swaddling clothes and uncer- 
tain youth into full-fledged maturity and strength. 
Though much had been done under Pastor Kurtz, 
and the growth in membership had been great, and 
the congregation had brought out a number of 
sturdy and able leaders, it was under Pastor Loch- 
man that the actual enlargement and establishment 
of Salem, in external matters, took place, and the 
scale of operations was set then for the next half- 
century. It was a great epoch with Salem. Before 
we examine it, let us look at the man who came, 
no doubt dusty and tired, to the little town on that 
1st of August, 1794. While attending catecheti- 
cal instructions his answers to the questions put to 
him caused his pastor, the Rev. Dr. Helmuth, to 
ask him to study for the ministry. He studied the- 

•Johajvn Rothraff waa examined from 4.00 to 4.30 on the same day. 

••Joh. Rothraflf received a license as catechist for congregations In 
York county at the same time. "Documentary History," p. 273. 

•"Den Isten Augst 94 Icam ich hleher und den 3ten Augst hielt Ich 
meine Antrlttspredigt hier." G. Lochman. Salem Record, p. 2. 



132 



YOUNG GEORGE LOCHMANN 



ology under Dr. Helmuth, was licensed to preach 
by the Ministerium in 1794, as we have seen, and 
came at once to Lebanon. After serving in Leb- 
anon for twenty-one years, in 18 15 he was elected 
pastor of the Lutheran church at Harrisburg. In 
1819 he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity. 
His constitution gave way prematurely because of 
the over-abundance of work connected with his pas- 
toral charge, and he died on July 26th, 1825, in 
the fifty-third year of his age. 

Our new pastor had a finished classical education. 
He was very industrious as a pastor. He was un- 
ostentatious in his deportment, humane and char- 
itable in his disposition, and more than ordinarily 
persuasive as a preacher. His spirit was pietisti- 
cally inclined and his sermons were calculated to 
arouse a conviction of sin and a desire for redemp- 
tion in the heart of the hearer. They were generally 
short, and subdivided into a number of points. 
There was a childlike simplicity about his charac- 
ter which quickly won its way to the heart of his 
people. The people Hked him. His language was 
plain and direct, and never ornamental. In later 
years he carried a gold-headed cane, and was al- 
ways a pattern of neatness in his dress, a gentleman 
of the old school in his manner, bowing politely to 
all he met. He scarcely ever passed a person for 
whom he had not a smile and a kind word. In his 
judgment of others he leaned to the side of mercy. 
He brought up a large family and all of them be- 
came consistent members of the Church. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 133 

Young Lochman was not yet twenty-one years 
of age when he arrived. He remained a mere H- 
censed candidate of the Ministerium until the year 
1800, when he finally was ordained. He was born 
in Philadelphia,* and was a graduate of the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania. His parents were poor but 
honest Germans. At school he attracted the atten- 
tion of his teachers at once. 



•December 2, 1773. 




CHAPTER XXII. 

THE BUILDING OF SALEM CHURCH. 




ITH a popular and 
enthusiastic min- 
ister, a fine build- 
ing block, a flour- 
ishing week-day 
school,* experi- 
enced and pro- 
gressive trustees, 
with the daily 
sight of the ad- 
vancing walls of 
the handsome new 
Reformed struc- 
ture, and with its 
own log building 
greatly in need of 
repairs, the con- 
gregation was in 



high spirit for ag- 
gressive work, and 
it was inevitable that she should decide to build. 
There were many questions to be decided 
before the first step in building could be 
actually taken. ''Shall we build on the 



• "Mr. liochman has a fine school in Lebanon." Minutes of Synod, 
1795. "Doc. Hist., p. 279. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



135 



corner of the alley, as the Reformed are doing, 
and on the old site, or shall we take the corner of 
the two streets?" ''Shall the building be of wood 
or stone?" "Shall it be altogether independent of 
the old structure?" "How large shall it be?" "Shall 
the style of building be cheap or costly." To most 
of these questions there was but one answer. The 
building must be for the future. It must be larger 
than any other building in Lebanon* and of the 
most substantial material and workmanship possi- 
ble. We do not know who planned the church, 
but there is a grace in the proportion, and a sim- 
plicity and majesty* in the Colonial style adopted, 
that can hardly be excelled. The stone work does 
not show^ its elaborateness as well as it did a hun- 
dred years ago, but the strength of the walls is so 
great that when alterations in the walls must be 
made, ordinary tools will not suffice to tear them 
down. In 1883 it was necessary to blast out the 
stone work in the hall, where improvements were 
to be introduced. 

Before proceeding to describe the erection of the 
building, it will be well to know what Pastor Loch- 
man himself says as to the congregation to which 
he had come, in his Minutes in the Record Book: 

"In the year 1794, on the First of August, I, 
George Lochman, came here as preacher to Leb- 
anon; and on the third of August, I preached my 

•The Reformed Church, then building, was 42 x 62. The SaJem building 
was made 66 x 50. It Is now 50 x 80. 

•Originally the building had no basement. It was all a single story* 



136 BUILDING OF SALEM CHURCH 

installation sermon. I found about the following 
organization in the Congregation. The Trustees 
were Michael Rieder, Philip Fernsler, Jacob Stiev, 
and Samuel Meily. The Elders were, Conrad Fas- 
nacht, and Christopher Uhler. The Deacons were 
Martin Yensel, and Abraham Doebler. The Treas- 
urer was Christopher Uhler. The number of those 
supporting the Congregation was about 65. On 
second Christmas Day, the congregation's regular 
time for election and setling of accounts, votes were 
taken for Elders and Deacons and Conrad Reinoel 
was elected as Elder and Peter Shindel as Deacon. 
They were installed in the beginning of 1795. 

'Tn the year 1795 on Second Christmas Day it 
was resolved by the members of the Congregation 
'That from this time and in the future two new Dea- 
cons shall be elected annually.' 

"In the year 1796 the Elders were Conrad Rein- 
oel, and John Shnee, the Deacons Peter Shindel, 
Frederick Embich, and George Shott." 

In the Spring of 1795 Pastor Lochman was at 
Synod and Christopher Uhler was with him as del- 
egate of the Lebanon congregation. Shortly after- 
ward the Building Committee must have been elect- 
ed. The following were its members, Christopher 
E. Uhler, Philip Fernsler, Conrad Hofman and Pe- 
ter Miller. 

It sometimes is supposed that in olden times con- 
tracts were made very loosely and things went more 
at haphazard than is the case in our own better- 
educated century. This Building Committee was 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



137 



very exact. Not only were all the bills preserved (in 
book-form and constituting an almost complete set 
of receipts) but important contracts were very care- 
fully drawn up. On the nth of November, 1795, 
the committee entered into "Articles of Agree- 
ment" duly signed and sealed with William Wil- 
son, mason, who was to be paid in gold or silver 
money "to erect, complete and finish in a substan- 
tial Workmanship manner all the mason stone work 
of the edifice aforesaid, which shall be of the fol- 
lowing dimensions: The length thereof shall be 
fifty-six feet and the depth or width fifty feet, and 
of such height and thickness as the trustees nom- 
inated and appointed by the Lutheran congregation 
for the erecting of the edifice, as a majority, shall 
reasonably order and direct . . . and moreover 
the Front shall be good and compleat Front Work- 
manship and to be finished at the time limited." 
The Building Committee bound itself to furnish the 
limestones delivered in good time, and Wilson is to 
find himself, and all assistants and tools, except two 
wheelbarrows, to be furnished by the committee. 
The terms are seven shillings of gold or silver for 
every perch as customarily measured; £100 on set- 
ting the first ties of windows, £100 when the gable 
ends are topped, £100 nine months thereafter, and 
soon as the whole Plaistering and Pointing is fully 
compleated the remainder shall be paid to the said 
William Wilson. Wilson further agrees to assist in 
setting up the first Lime Kiln needed for the pur- 
pose and binds himself in £800 pounds if he fail to 



138 BUILDING OF SALEM CHURCH 

perform all this truly and faithfully, by Dec. I, 

I795-* 

Work quickly began in earnest. The members 
were full of enthusiasm. The contract allowed 
them to furnish the materials, and many of them 
came from afar with their big wagons to help to 
haul the stones, lime and sand to the building. 
Such members as old George Shott were especially 
active in thus furnishing teams and labor free of 
expense to the building Committee. 

By the beginning of June, 1796, everything was 
ready for the laying of the corner-stone. Let us 
hear Pastor Lochmann himself speak of this event : 

'Tn this year on the 8th of June the corner-stone 
of our new Church was laid in a solemn manner; 
On which occasion pastor Shulze preached in the 
morning, Mr. Hendel in the afternoon, and Mr. 
Flegel in the evening. The document that was 
read and laid in the corner-stone was the following : 

IN THE NAME OF THE TRIUNE GOD! 

''We the members of the German Evangelical Lu- 
theran Congregation of Lebanon, Dauphin County 
Pennsylvania, herewith make public: That our 
Congregation through the Grace of God is organ- 
ized in the following manner at this time: — The 
Preacher is: John George Lochman A. M. The 



•The original articles of agreement beautifully written on a folio of 
linen paper and duly sealed, and in a good state of preservation, were 
discovered a few weeks ago by the Misses Uhler of Meadow Bank, 
among Christopher Uhler' s papers, and presented to the congregation. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 1 39 

Trustees are: Michael Rieder, Philip Fernsler, 
Jacob Stiev, Samuel Meily. The Elders are: 
Conrad Reinoel, John Shnee. The Deacons are: 
Peter Shindel, Frederick Embich, George Shott. 
The number of heads of family in the Congregation 
are about eighty. The members of the building 
Committee, to whom the work of erecting a church 
was entrusted, are Christopher E. Uhler, Philip 
Fernsler, Conrad Hofman and Peter Miller. This 
is our organization, but at the same time we heart- 
ily wish in addition that our congregation the long- 
er it lives, the more it may increase, not only in 
numbers, but also in Godliness and in true rever- 
ence for the Triune God. 

'Therefore and for this purpose we have resolved 
to build a fitting house or Church for the holding of 
public worship, and hereby declare before God and 
man that the Church which under the gracious as- 
sistance of God shall be built upon this corner-stone 
shall be consecrated to the Triune God, Father, Son 
and Holy Ghost; That she is and shall remain an 
Evangelical-Lutheran Church, according to the 
teaching of the Apostles and Prophets, in which 
Jesus Christ is the corner-stone, and according to 
the Unaltered Augsburg Confession. 

"Done at Lebanon, the eighth day of June in the 
year of our Lord seventeen hundred and ninety-six. 

"P. S. At the same time a metal plate was laid 
in the stone, on which the following was inscribed : 
*This corner stone was solemnly laid today, the 
eighth of June, seventeen ninety-six by the Honor- 



140 



BUILDING OF SALEM CHURCH 



able Pastors Emanuel Shulze, William Kurtz, and 
George Lochman, and upon the same there shall 
be built by the Grace of God a German Lutheran 
Church, by the name of Salem Church."* 

Tt would have been very interesting to examine 
the original subscription list for the payment of this 
large church about to be built. Through some 
happy chance there has been preserved and is before 
me now a list of such subscribers who had only paid 
partial installments of the amounts subscribed and 
who were thus still to account to the treasury. 
There are 105 names on the list, which unfortunate- 
ly has no date. The sums still due range from £15 
to 2 shillings.* But bills began to come in as 
quickly as the subscriptions. Already in Decem- 
ber, '95, a number of purchases of powder were 
made from Peter Gloninger, presumably for the 
purpose of blasting stone in the quarries in the 
foundation excavations. By the third of February 

•Translated from old church record. 

♦On this list of subscribers we find John Philip Beck, Abraham Doeb- 
ler, Emanuel Meyly, Conrad Fasnacht, Martin Uhler, Henry Schantz, 
Jr., Lemat Embich, Benjamin Zerby, Christian Crider, Christopher 
Waltz, Adam Ritscher, Leonard and John Zimmerman, Martin Waltz, 
Henry Wa&ner Uhler, Frederick Tensel, John George, George Tromb, 
George Haas, James Reed, John Bucher, John Rohrer, John Gasser, 
Conrad Gerhart Uhler, Ludwig Shott (und noch aus for Gibel Front), 
Jacob Killian, Friedrich Stoever and George Trion (These two sub- 
scribed the largest amounts), Mathes Brauneol, Leonard Reinhart, 
Johannes Biebul, Jacob Giroff, Thomas Bolls, George Reinoehl Jung, 
Philip Grinwalt, (alt), Adam Reitz, John Raiber, Henrich ImhofE, 
Philip Hautz, Jacob Folmer, Jr., Henrich Strohm, Thomas Atkinson, 
Christian Gasser, and George George. It would not be proper to give 
amounts, as those who paid the most cash down at the start would ap- 
pear to be ddng less than the others. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



141 



it became evident that a whole keg more of powder 
would be needed. By April, '96, (five weeks before 
the cornerstone laying) an agreement was made 
for ten thousand shingles,* and thirty pounds paid 
down in advance. On the same day eight boxes 
of glass, some white lead and other materials were 
bought from John and James Poultney in Philadel- 
phia. Already in January, '96, Joseph Kraus and 
Conrad Wittmeyer were paid for stone work, and 
Conrad Reinoehl for iron work for the building. 
William Mohr received £3 ''for the water wagon." 
On July 30th Wilson was up to the windows with 
the wall, and received £150 pounds from Uhler. 
On Aug. 15, he received £25 pounds more. On 
Oct. 19, he received another £50 pounds and 
George Hess £12 for breaking stone in the quarry. 
By January, '97, the carpenters have been at work, 
for Peter Miller receives £10 to pay Christopher 
Embich. On May 4th Wilson got another hun- 
dred lbs., and in August still another payment is 
made, and 407 pounds of iron are bought from John 
Boughter. In October Jacob Embich receives pay 
for carpenter work. The Plastering has been un- 
der way by January. 6500 lathes were bought in 
one lot. The shingles were paid in May, and 5000 
more shingles had been bought and paid for in '97, 
the plaster in June and paint in October. 34 books 
of gold leaf** were bought, and in 1799 they were 

•At 18s. 9d. 

•♦The Treasurer's box still contains one of these books of gold leaf, 
with the gold in, as a souvenir of the building. 



142 BUILDING OF SALEM CHURCH 

obliged to have two shovels made for the church in 
January, presumably to keep the path clear of 
snow. By 1800 they were paying £5 los. interest 
on £50 tbs. loaned. In 1802 they are paying £29 
tbs. interest, and the whole cost is summed up as 
being £2585,5s,od. 

While the building was going on Pastor Loch- 
man and his delegates had been faithful in attend- 
ance on Synod, Conrad Reinoehl being delegate in 
1796 and Conrad Hoffman in 1797. They report- 
ed in 1796 that our weekday school had 40 schol- 
ars.* When our pastor and delegate went to 
Synod in '97, they went with instructions to invite 
the body to Lebanon in '98, when the new church 
would be finished. They went to Baltimore, 
and there they found that poor pastor Kurtz had 
gotten into dissension with some of his flock at 
Jonestown, and both parties requested an investi- 
gation. They had not an easy task to influence 
the Synod for Lebanon as Hagerstown, Md., also 
wished to have it in 1798. The Synod would not 
commit itself to either place at the opening of the 
session, but just before its close **it was decided 
that the Synodical Meeting for next year shall be 
held on the Festival of the Trinity, in Lebanon,"** 
Many jubilant and yet anxious hearts waited for 
Sunday, June 3d, 1798, to dawn. The Synod, 38 
persons in all, was here. A great concourse of 

•••Doc, Hist." p. 286. 

••This no doubt settled the date of the dedication of the Lebanon church 
and is the reason why the Synodical and the Salem anniversaries always 
conflict with each other. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 1 43 

people from miles around must have gathered. 
The building was the largest, outside of Lancaster 
and Harrisburg, in this part of the country. Soon 
after nine o'clock in the morning the clergy and 
delegates of the several churches met in the old 
log church at the alley and proceeded thence in 
procession to the new church to consecrate it. 

Arriving in the new building, the assembled con- 
gregation no doubt received the Festival Leaflet 
published by Dr. Lochman containing the hymns 
of the dedicatory service.* In that leaflet the pas- 
tor gives prominence to the new name of the 
Church and addresses the people as follows : 

'These leaflets are distributed among you to 
arouse you to a state of joyfulness and praise unto 
God over the completion of the church. But espe- 
cially are they intended for our beloved young 
people as a constant reminder of the dedication of 
this church, built by their fathers. 

'Terhaps there are some among you anxious to 
know why this church has been named ''Salem,'* 
and to enlighten these the reasons shall here be 
given. Salem was the place where God especially 
revealed his presence, for we read in the Old Testa- 
ment, Psalms 76:3: 'Tn Salem is his tabernacle." 
Secondly, the beautiful meaning of the word "Sa- 
lem" has prompted us to name the church "Salem." 
Salem means "The peaceful." Salem church is, 

•A few of these have been preserved to the present day, and from 
them several of the faithful members of the church in this year 1898, 
have had fac-simlle reproductions struck off in German and also trans- 
lations in English, in commemoration of the original consecration. 



144 



BUILDING OF SALEM CHURCH 



therefore, the peaceful church or the Church of 
Peace. And how it is to be wished that this our con- 
gregation may always be and remain a church of 
Peace, a congregation of Love! How it is to be 
wished for that it never may prove itself unworthy 
of this name! Then God, who is a God of Love 
and Peace, will surely dwell among us and bless us. 

''Moreover you know, dear friends, that it is not 
sufificient to build houses of God but it is also our 
duty to attend the services, which are being held in 
them and we must (what is still more important) 
live up to the teachings of the church, which will 
be to the honor of God and to the blessing of the 
soul. This is the object of a church of God. This 
is also the destination of this new church, which we 
dedicate today. Here we shall unite to praise the 
Holy Trinity, here songs of praise to Jesus, the 
Son of God, shall ring out. Here it is our blessed 
privilege to ask Jesus for mercy, blessing and help 
and He by His promise, will be in our midst and 
hear our united prayers, and bless us. And here 
we shall listen to the precious word of consolation. 
Would to God that we should always hear it in such 
a manner that our hearts will become purer. Here 
especially the young shall be brought to Jesus and 
led in the paths of virtue. Lastly, here in this earth- 
ly tabernacle we shall be prepared to enter the hea- 
venly tabernacle of Salem above. 

''May these expectations and hopes be realized 
with all of us. That is the earnest wish and prayer 
of Your Friend and Teacher, 

'*M. George Lochman." 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 145 

The President of the Synod, Dr. Henrich Muh- 
lenberg, entered the altar, and "with a solemn 
prayer consecrated this church to be a house of 
salvation."* He preached the consecratory ser- 
mon on Gal. 6:15, 16: 

For In Christ JesuB neither circumcision availeth anything, nor xinclr- 
cumclslon, but a new ceature. And as many as walk accordingr to this 
rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Isrsiel of God. 

There was a second service in the afternoon at 
which Dr. Helmuth preached on Ps. 68 127 : 

Because of thy temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto 
thee. , 

At the evening service, P. Schmidt took as his 
text, Gen. 4:4: 

And Abel, he also brought of the firstling of his flock, and of the fat 
thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel, and to his offering. 

On Monday, June 4th, Synod was in session, and 
the exercises closed in the evening with a service 
and a sermon by Rev. Mr. Schaefer, from German- 
town. 

On the following Saturday Pastor Lochman con- 
firmed a class of 36 catechumens, among whom 
were a Jacob Embich, a Christoph Uhler, a David 
Heylman and a Georg Hofman. The next morn- 
ing the Holy Communion was celebrated for the 
first time in the new Salem church** and 162 com- 
municants partook of the sacrament. Thus was 
the beautiful and solemn celebration of the consecra- 
tion of the new church concluded, and it stood 
ready to greet the nineteenth century and bear 

•Doc. Hist. p. 301. 

••Das erstemal in Salemskirche, "Church Record," p. 438. 



146 BUILDING OF SALEM CHURCH 

daily testimony in the heart of a busy community 
that there is a God of strength and peace in the hea- 
ven above. 

Three generations have passed away since that 
day, and the bones of the builders lie mouldering 
in the dust. There lives are gone but their work 
remains. Their other achievements, howsoever 
great, are remembered almost no more by the com- 
munity that rises ever anew about these walls. But 
their one great deed for God, has rescued their 
names from oblivion, and has won respect for them 
after a hundred years of rushing progress. As for 
new Salem, she has become Old Salem, but she ever 
renews her youth, and stands forth afresh in the 
beauty of holiness. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, IN SA- 
LEM AND IN LEBANON. 




n 



Tm£ Oifi /^fitMAoe. 



ANY changes were 
taking place in 
the American Re- 
pubHc during the last fif- 
teen years of the old cen- 
tury. The generation of 
pioneers in Eastern Penn- 
sylvania and their ways 
of thinking had disappeared. 

Lebanon was in those days a satellite first of 
nearer Lancaster and then of more distant Philadel- 
phia. Though young Mr. Lochman had cast in his 
lot with the Lebanon people, he had left his heart in 
Philadelphia, and a year and a month after his first 
arrival he was married to a Philadelphian* and 
brought his bride to the little Lebanon parsonage. 
She died several years afterward, and on June 3d, 
1799, he was married again. Again the minister's 
wife was a Philadelphian.** It was no wonder, then, 
that the congregation began the new century by 
erecting a two-story building for the use of their 
preacher. The building was on the site of the pres- 



•Mary Ma«rdalene Grotz. 
•*Susaji Hoffman. 



148 NINETEENTH CENTURY 

ent parsonage, and the lot *'on the corner of Spring 
alley and Walnut street," was donated for the pur- 
pose. Stites had sold it in 1760 to John Huber. 
The deed was endorsed by Frederick Yensel, M. 
Reinhart, A. Whitman and then by John Thome 
to Daniel Fetzberger and Martin Uhler, trustees, 
"for the use of the German Lutheran congregation 
in Lebanon." 

Since writing the chapter on the parsonage of 
1783 — only a few hours ago, in fact — the writer 
found the original deed and has discovered that 
both the parsonage of 1783 and the one of 1800 
were erected on the same spot on this lot under 
discussion. The following extract from the origi- 
nal deed will make the matter clear : 

"AND WHEREAS the said John Huber and Maria Elizabeth his 
Wife in and by their assignment endorsed on the said Indenture and 
bearing the date 7th of December A.D. 1762 did assign sell and convey the 
above described Lrf>t or Piece of Ground with the appurtenances unto 
Prederick Yensel in Free. And 

WHEREAS the said Frederick Yensel and Maria Agnees His Wife by 
an assignment endorsed on the said Indenture dated the 4th day of 
May A. D. 1767, did assign sell and convey the above described Lot or 
Piece of Land with the appurtenances unto Abraham Weidman his 
Heirs and Assigns forever, 

AND WHEREAS the said Abraham Weidman and Elizabeth His Wife 
by their assignment endorsed on the said Indenture dated the 25th 
day of December 1769, did assign sell and convey the above described 
Lot or Piece of Ground unto John Thome in Free. And 

WHEREAS the said John Thome and Anna Maria his wife by their In- 
denture bearing date the 5th day of February Anna Domini 1783 did sell 
and convey the above described Lot or Piece of Ground with the ap- 
purtenances unto the said Daniel Fetzberger and Martin Uhler in 
Free. And 

WHEREAS the German Lutheran Congrregatlon settled in and near 
Lebanon aforesaid having erected a House on the above described 
Lot or Piece of Ground which now is for a considerable time past 
has been used and occupied by their Minister. And the Members of the 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



149 



Congregation aforesaid have chosen and duly constituted and appointed 
the said Philip Femsler, Jacob Stieb, Daniel Fetzberger, and An- 
thony Depbler Trustees to take possession of the said Lot or Piece of 
Ground with the appurtenances to and for the only use pxirpose and 
Benefit of the said Congreg-ation and for no other use purpose or benefit 
whatever." 

The Old Parsonage with its suggestion of spread- 
ing strength and rest and simple comfort, with its 
walls covered by a thin stucco and a smooth pinkish 
white wash, with its stately columnar piazza, and 
great side yard, was a picturesque object in Leba- 
non. In the rear its old fences and lines of spread- 
ing currant and raspberry bushes, its clumps of 
gooseberry stalks in the middle, its great pound- 
apple and rambo trees, its upshooting beds of rhu- 
barb and horseradish, and its cucumber patches, its 
grape arbors and quince trees, its moss-covered 
wash and tool-house, its old hard-wood log barn, 
and its pavements of flag-stones with the grass 
creeping up between the interstices, were objects 
of care and delight in the summer season. In this 
parsonage young Pastor Lochman so faithfully kept 
his Church Records. The following table will give 
at a glance some idea of his official acts in the con- 
gregation : 





Com. 


Catech- 


Mar. 


Fun. 




Com. 


Catech- 


Mar. 


Fun. 


1794 


47 




11 


8 


1803 


183 


53 


41 


13 


17% 


196 


95 


26 


16 


1804 


197 


37 


45 


32 


1796 


122 


35 


17 


13 


1805 






40 


30 


1797 


140 


37 


16 


12 


1806 


217 


55 


52 


18 


1798 


162 


36 


22 


23 


1807 


205 


45 


55 


12 


1799 


159 


45 


50 


11 


1808 


226 


47 


41 


10 


1800 


173 


42 


65 


24 


1809 


210 


49 


51 


20 


1801 


160 


37 


21 


10 


1810 


218 


58 


38 


9 


1802 


172 


40 


46 


25 


1811 


247 


63 


48 


31 



A congregation that could build a church, and 



1^0 NINETEENTH CENTURY 

a parsonage two years afterward* and meantime 
pay a schoolmaster and carry on a flourishing 
school was not in extraordinary financial stress. 
The times, indeed, were improving greatly. Large 
enterprises were being projected and undertaken. 
Already in 1792 David Rittenhouse, the Philadel- 
phia astronomer and geometrician, had surveyed 
a route for a canal to connect the waters of the 
Susquehanna and the Schuylkill by means of the 
Swatara and Tulpehocken creeks. The full plan 
was nothing less than to connect the great lakes 
and the Mississippi with the seacoast by a water- 
way. The start was to be made by connecting the 
Susquehanna and the Schuylkill. Lebanon was then 
the central point of operations and work was begun 
between Myerstown and Lebanon already in 
1794. Though the progress was slow, the fame 
of the project was great, and it was spoken of far 
and wide. Joseph Scott, in his Geographical De- 
scription of Pennsylvania in 1805, prematurely de- 
scribes the enterprise as already completed. ''Leb- 
anon," Scott says in this year 1805, "is a hand- 
some borough, and port-town, agreeably situated 
on the S. side of the Quitipahilla creek. The plan 
of the town is regular. It contains about 300 
houses, a German Lutheran and a German Calvinist 
church. About a mile and a half E- of the town is 
the Susquehanna and Schuylkill canal, connecting 
the waters of the Tulpehocken. A navigable 

•Under I>r. Lochman the Annville Church probably was built, and 
also the present brick church of the Blndnagrel congregation. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH i^i 

branch of the Schuylkill, with the Quitipahilla, a 
navigable branch of the Swatara." 

The people lived quite comfortably. The fol- 
lowing articles bought at the sale of property on a 
well-stocked farm in 1808 will furnish an idea of the 
mode of life at the time. The articles disposed of 
were ^'i wet stone, i apple, Old Iron, i Chizel, 
I Bell, I Hamer, 2 Hatchels, i Wool Card, i 
drawing knife, i Syth, Old Iron, i Ax, Old Iron, 
I Spade, I Cutting Iron, Sundries, i Broad Ax and 
Hoe, I chain and pan, 6 Syth, i iron pot, i hoe, 

1 Bridle, i Sattle Cloth, i Saddle and Saddle Bags, 

2 cow chains and tobacco box, i cutting knife, 2 
augers, i pair stockings, i cap, 4 pair of Trowsers, 
I Shovel, I shirt and jacket, i Geat Coat, i pair 
Breeches, i hunting Shirt, i coat, 3 Bags, i Hat, 
I English Bible, i spelling Book, 2 Books, 3 Bot- 
tles, I Basket, i table, i iron kettle, i Gun and Shott 
Bouch, I Rifle, 2 Barrels, i Slough, 2 sheep, i 
Chest and Drum, Flax seed, i Blanket Coat, 141^ 
lb. wool, I Horyle, 2 Heiffers, i Swine, i Tub, i 
Saw, I Stove, 12 wheeping sticks, i Sheep Sheet, 

3 porengers, i tea pot and Razor, i pewter mug, 
pewter plates, 2 shirts." 

John Kelker was the cryer of that time and re- 
ceived about $3 for one day's crying. John Glon- 
inger, for doing the scrivening, and for appraising 
goods, writing inventory, agreements, releases, 
etc., connected with the settlement of an estate, re- 
ceived £3 or £4. At country sales free whiskey of- 
ten was served. It took a gallon or two, which 



152 NINETEENTH CENTURY 

Bushong and Bowman were willing to furnish for 
five or six shillings. 

By this time the first print- ^,.^^.52^?^^ ^.^^jO- 

ing press had been set up in ^^^"^^"^^^C^ ^ 
Lebanon. Jacob Schnee, who lived just across 
the street from the church,* set up his estab- 
lishment in 1799. His first work was ''Der wohler- 
fahrene Batmi-Gaertner.'' It was "a thorough man- 
ual of instruction in the art of handUng fruit trees.'* 
Jacob Schnee was in business from 1799 to 18 16. 
In 1809 Jacob Stoever started a second press and 
continued it until 1829. H. B. Sage put a third 
press, also in 1809, but remained in business only 
two years. In 18 16 Joseph Hartman began the 
printing business, continuing until 1830, and in 
1827 Johann and Joseph Miller began to print 
but continued at work only three years. 

Mr. Schnee, the first Lebanon printer, was a 
member of Salem church. He did good work. For 
printing handbills he recived about ten shillings. 
On January i, 1807, he branched out into a new 
venture and established the first Lebanon paper. 
It was called Der Freie Lebanoner. For inserting 
advertisements, such as public sales, etc., a number 
of times, his charge was about a dollar. He con- 
tinued the paper only two years, when in 1809 he 
sold it to Jacob Stoever, who called it the Libanon 
Morgenstern. Schnee also published an almanac, for 
the first time in 1808, and several reUgious books. 

•Where John Henry Miller now resides. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



153 



In 1809 Henry Sage published a i6mo book of 52 
pp., giving instructions in the art of dying wool, 
linen and cotton fabrics. Schnee published a i6mo 
life of Dr. George de Benneville, in 45 pages, and a 
Life of General Washington. In 1809 he published 
a Heidelberg Catechism, the almanac, the daily jour- 
nal of the State Senate, and Seiler's Biblishe Reli- 
gion, a i2mo vol. of over 300 pages. In 1814 he 
printed Habermann's Gebetbuechlein."^ 

The first number of Mr. Schnee's paper was issued 
on Thursday, January ist, 1807. It contained arti- 
cles on the Congress of the United States, on 
Aaron Burr, a regular column of European news, 
an article on Bonepart's Tyranny, and a transla- 
tion of a Hebrew letter which proved that Napolean 
Bonaparte was a Jew. 

Some well-known man, whose name is signed 
in full, publishes the following 

WARNING FOR A WICKED MAN 
In the town of Lebanon, name D. L.; 
he is a satler by trade, and I hereby warn 
everyone, not to have anything to do with 
him, for no one can get along with him. 
The hotel of the White Swan on Cumberland 
street is being offered for sale by John Dubs. "A 
German Schoolmaster is wanted in the congrega- 
tion at Zigel church. This would be a good place 

•For information relative to early German books printed in Pennsyl- 
vania the reader is referred to "The First Century of German Printing 
in America, 1728-1830, by Oswald SeidenaUcher, Phlla. SchaefTer &, 
Koradl. 18IS." 



154 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 



for a man with a family, as the congregation is sup- 
pHed with a good residence and school house, and 
a stable, a pump near the house. A usable and fit 
subject can begin on the first of next April." Signed 
by the elders and deacons. 

The postmaster of the town at this time was J. 
Karch. George Oves was clock maker. The colo- 
nel of the Third Regiment was George Bowman, 
and the paymaster was Peter Shindel. The Leb- 
anon Morgenstern was now being printed as it itself 
states 'Tn Market street between the taverns of Mr. 
Gleim and Mr. Greenwalt." Christian Snavely was 
the store-keeper. Among the prominent persons 
in the community, not mentioned before, were John 
Weidman, David Krause, Frederick Hubley, 
Henry Gilbert (treasurer of Salem church), Peter 
Schindle, Henry Snavely, Stephen Sarge, John 
Carmany, and in the county, Philip Erb and Sam- 
uel Rex. The Morgenstern of June 27th, 1810, pub- 
lishes the following notice of the corner-stone lay- 
ing of the original Roman Catholic church in this 
community : 

CORNER-STONE LAYING. 

To a Christian-disposed public notice is given 
that the corner-stone of the new Roman CathoHc 
church to be built in the town of Lebanon will be 
laid on Monday the 23rd of next July at 10 o'clock, 
with the customary ceremonies. A number of 
preachers will be present. All respecters of public 
worship are therefore respectfully invited to attend 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 155 

this church solemnity by the Building Committee. 

June 2y, 1810. 

The following week it commented on the event, 
stating that the ceremony occurred "Day before 
yesterday with all due solemnity. At 1 1 o'clock in 
the morning the Reverend Mr Beschter of Lan- 
caster, with the assistance of the Reverend Preach- 
er of this town opened the service and laid the cor- 
nerstone. In the morning he preached in German 
and in the afternoon he delivered a fitting sermon 
on 1st Peter, 2-6." 

All these papers mentioned, all the books pub- 
lished in Lebanon were German. All rehgious rec- 
ords were kept in German. All services, with rare ex- 
ception, were held in German, and the conversation 
heard on the streets and in the stores and taverns 
was almost altogether German It was the custom 
for prominent citizens to meet and discuss matters 
at the taverns, and the town people in general had 
much more time and disposition for conversation 
than they have now. On election days and battalion 
days, and at the cherry festivals, as well as at funer- 
als and sales the populace gathered in large num- 
bers and for the purpose of recreation.* 

•We who are apt to condemn the amusements of preceding- generations 
should bear in mind that the opportunities for recreation such as the 
young people now crave were very limited. There were no rail or trolley 
cars, no bicycles, no music halls and opera houses, no illustrated papers, 
magazines, or daily papers, etc., etc., and a man who spends his money 
to witness baseball, or a woman who goes about for recreation on a 
bicycle, would have been as severely condemned by the fathers for wrong 
doing, as we sometimes are inclined to condemn them in their ways. It 
m\ist be said however that the habit of drinking was much more uni- 
versal than It is now and was baneful in its effects. 



156 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 



TAKE NOTICE! 

The undersigned Burgesses of the 
town Lebanon announce that a Jahr- 
marckt of Fair will be held in the 
town of Lebanon on Monday and 
Tuesday 23rd and 24th of this month, 
when proper stands for salespeople 
will be put up in order to furnish 
such attractions as are generally to 
be found at fairs. No gambling for 
money or money value will be al- 
lowed. 

Abraham Doebler | -t, 

^ ^ y Bure^esses. 

Christian Schnebly j 

Lebanon Oct. 3, 1809. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE NEW CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 

IT IS not probable that the Salem church 
had any written law during the first gen- 
eration of her existence. But with her 
thorough establishment under Dr. Loch- 
man, it was natural that that far sight- 
ed and indefatigable worker should see the neces- 
sity of having something more fixed and settled 
than mere old custom under which to act, and 
something which would serve the congregation as 
a sheet anchor in times of trial. 

Pastor Lochman wrote a very simple and clear 
form of constitution and in the Fall of 1803 called 
the Church Council together a number of times in 
order to consider it. This constitution was laid 
before the congregation on Second Christmas day 
and read point by point and was adopted with few 
alterations. (Church Record, page 535.) It seems, 
however, as though the congregation was not quite 
sure as to what it might be binding itself unto, or 
as to whether it wished to be bound at all by a writ- 
ten instrument. For it laid down the conditions 
that every year on Second Christmas alterations 
may be made in the constitution if desired by a ma- 
jority of the members. 

The first chapter treats of "the Preacher." He is 



158 



THE NEW CHURCH CONSTITUTION 



to preach God's Word on the ground of the Apos- 
tles and Prophets and of the Unaltered Augsburg 
Confession, publicly, purely, short, clear, and in a 
comprehensible and edifying manner." He is to ad- 
minister the Holy Sacraments, and to decline to give 
them to those who live in open sin. He is to visit 
the sick, and prepare them for a blessed death. He 
is to take charge of the catechetical instructions, 
to have the oversight of school and teachers, and 
to institute salutary discipline and examinations in 
order that the youth may be thoroughly grounded 
in God's Word and our catechism which is drawn 
therefrom. He is also to preside at the business 
meetings of the congregation. He is not to allow 
any preacher or student to take his place who has 
not been thoroughly tested by the Church disci- 
pline. 

Chapter 2 is devoted to the School Master. He 
is to teach the children to read, write, pray, sing, 
and learn the catechism and if possible to exercise 
them in arithmetic. He is to use the text books pre- 
scribed by the pastor and council. He is to be the 
Precentor of the congregation in the song of the 
church and is to have the supervision of the ring- 
ing of the bell. He is to be compensated by the 
congregation for leading the singing and for ring- 
ing the bell for public service and for midday prayer; 
but for ringing and singing at funerals he is to be 
compensated by those who engage him. He is to 
set a good Christian example. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 1 59 

The third chapter treats of the trustees. It says 
that as long as the congregation is not incorpor- 
ated it is imperatively necessary that she elect a 
certain number of citizens of substantial means who 
are at the same time steadfast members, in order 
that the deeds of the congregation's property may 
be made transmitted and preserved in the name and 
for the benefit of the congregation. It is the duty 
of the four trustees to secure, with the consent of 
the congregation and the accord of the Church 
Council the necessary pieces of property, to erect 
buildings thereon, and to advance sums of money 
when necessary, which shall be paid again by the 
contributions of the congregation. 

Chapter fourth is devoted to the elders and dea- 
cons. They are to remain in oflfice for two years. 
The Church Council shall nominate four or six can- 
didates for each ofiFice. When elected they must 
subscribe the constitution. The elders shall also 
set a good example. They shall reduce and wipe 
out the debts of the congregation and see that the 
finances are properly conducted. They shall visit 
the schools and see that the children are properly 
taught. They shall make peace in disputes. They 
shall be ready to accompany the pastor to see the 
sick, and to do everything for the welfare of the 
congregation. The deacons are to have charge of 
the public service and to render all assistance there- 
unto, they are to collect and account for the alms, 
they are to see that the minister is supported, and 
to see that discipline and good order are maintained 



l6o THE NEW CHURCH CONSTITUTION 

in the congregation, particularly at public worship. 

The fifth chapter is devoted to the treasurer. 

The sixth chapter to the members of the congre- 
gation. The rules of the members of the congre- 
gation are very strict. 

The seventh chapter prescribes the rights and 
duties of the Church Council, and the eighth chap- 
ter defines those who have the right of burial upon 
the grave-yard. The constitution is signed De- 
cember 26th, 1803, by John George Lochman, 
preacher of the congregation; Jacob Stieb, An- 
thony Dobler, Conrad Hofman, trustees; Peter 
Fischer, Jacob Beicher, Conrad Reinohl, Johannes 
Schnee, elders; Anstett Glasbrenner, Bernhard 
Embich, George Beckley, George Reinohl, Jr., dea- 
cons; Henry Gilbert, treasurer; Christian Ulrich, 
George Kurtz, Johannes Fernsler, Jacob Embich, 
Frederick Steiner, Jacob Ritscher, Frederick Beck- 
ly. It was in force for many years. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

OLD SALEM BUYS AN ORGAN. 

AFTER half a century's existence Old Salem 
had provided a school house and teacher 
for the education of her children, a 
church building for her public worship, a 
pastor and parsonage, and a constitution 
for her internal organization. Up to this time 
all the music in the church services was vocal. In 
fact an organ had never been heard in the town of 
Lebanon. At Hebron there was an instrument al- 
ready in Revolutionary days, but it was very small. 
The song of the congregation was led by the Pre- 
centor and the school children constituted a sort of 
children's choir. In the year 1808, however, the 
congregation decided to set up a large pipe organ 
in the church. This organ had two manuals and was 
a very fine instrument in its day. It was built by 
Bachman, of Lititz, who was a pupil of the cele- 
brated organ builder, Tanneberger. Both these 
builders, and in fact all the organ buiders in Amer- 
ica at this time were Moravians. Tanneberger 
built the largest and finest organ in America for 
the Lutheran church in Philadelphia, in 1796, and 
it may have been the hearing of the service render- 
ed by the aid of this organ, as Dr. Lochman was 
accustomed to it, by the delegates of Synod, that 
stimulated the first agitation of the organ ques- 



1 62 SALEM BUYS AN ORGAN 

tion. In one of the first issues of the Lebanon paper, 
that of May nth, 1808, we find the following no- 
tice: "On the I2th of June a new organ will be 
dedicated and consecrated. Lovers of divine ser- 
vice will have opportunity to hear not only the 
preaching of ministers from abroad, but also a new 
beautiful organ, and are hereby invited to attend." 

Having had the Synod twice at its public conse- 
crations, it is natural that Old Salem should make 
the effort to secure the presence of that body for 
this new occasion. She succeeded. ''On Sunday 
Morning, June 12th, all the preachers and the del- 
egates of the respective congregations assembled 
in the parsonage and proceeded to the church where 
Dr. Helmuth of Philadelphia preached to a very 
large assembly on John x:i Sq. 

Since the Lutheran church now had an organ it 
was necessary that the Reformed church should also 
be supplied with a musical instrument. Notice of 
the dedication of the Reformed organ appeared on 
October i8th, 1809. The dedication took place on 
the 1 2th and 13th of November. According to the 
newspaper account a number of ministers preached 
for two days and the musicians of Lititz were pres- 
ent with their musical instruments to enrich the 
services. Unquestionably the use of these two in- 
struments in the town must have been quite a nov- 
elty and many persons who were not in the habit 
of attending church must have been attracted to the 
services for a short time. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

WAR OF l8l2. 

HEN Governor Snyder is- 
sued his ''General Or- 
ders" in May, 1812, near- 
ly a month before Con- 
gress declared war in 
England, the whole 
State of Pennsylvania 
was extraordinarily 

prompt to respond. The 
President required 14,000 
men from her toward the 
army of one hundred thousand, which he desired 
to have. She tendered three times the number re- 
quested, though few of them actually saw service. 
Lebanon county was full of enthusiasm for the fray. 
Jacob Bower was a brigadier general. Abraham 
Doebler was brigade inspector. Adam Ritchser 
was lieutenant colonel and John Uhler was one of 
the quartermasters. In Capt. Jacob Achey's com- 
pany William Hubley was sergeant. It contained 
two Stegers, two Daubs,, and Jacob Uhler and Pe- 
ter Weiss. In Capt. Henry Doebler^s company, Ja- 
cob Embich was lieutenant, Frederick Fasnacht 
was ensign, Andrew D. Hubley, Samuel Embich 
and George Karch were sergeants. Jacob Shindel 




1 54 ^^R OF 1812 

and Philip Embich were corporals. Among the 
privates were Jacob Bricker, Louis Doebler, Henry 
Dubs, Peter EUinger, Abraham Embich, John 
Geissaman, George Gerhart, Mathias and Philip 
Greenawalt, David Hoffman, Philip Honeficaus, 
James Marshall, Christian Miller, John Rewalt, 
John Rinal, Joseph Shnee, Christian Segrist, 
George Shindel, William Stoever, Michael Uhler, 
Jacob Weiss, and Martin Yensell. Many of these 
were Lutherans. 

Before the troops marched away from Lebanon 
(there were no railroads for the transportation of 
troops or supplies or for any other purpose in that 
day) they assembled in the Salem church where the 
Rev. Mr. Lochman preached a sermon to them on 
the first and second verses of the twentieth Psalm : 

"The T.ord hear thee in thy day of trouble; the name of the God of 
Jacob defend thee: send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen 
thee out of Zion." 

Dr. Lochman, adressing the soldiers and the 
whole assembled anxious audience, said : "I know of 
no words in the Bible that are more appropriate 
today, they contain the Israelites' wish of good for- 
tune for daily and for the troops that were to 
march away from Jerusalem to battle against the 
foe of the land. 

'Today we find ourselves in the situation of Is- 
rael of old, an enemy has effected entrance into our 
country and has begun devastation. Already many 
cities have been injured, yes, even the Capitol of 
the United States has already been captured. For 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 165 

this reason a number of you are united as soldiers 
and prepared to march away and drive off this foe, 
and others are here with bleeding hearts to wish 
you good fortune in your departure. 

"Yes, my dear fellow-brethren, who have come 
forth to battle for your native land in this critical 
hour, we wish you what the Israelites wished their 
David and his troops." The speaker then went on 
to explain more clearly what the wish of the Pslam 
was. It was, first of all, a wish that the Lord would 
hear the soldier in trouble. Dr. Lochman gave a 
brief and graphic description of the trouble the sol- 
dier meets and showed particularly how David 
found the Lord the best Helper in such trouble. He 
cited the examples of Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Gus- 
tavus Adolphus and Washington. He told them 
plainly that if they wished the Lord to hear them 
it would be necessary for them to conduct them- 
selves as Christians and to avoid excesses, drunk- 
enness, gambling, cursing and the other sins of the 
soldier. May it never be said that the soldiers of 
Lebanon county are given to excess! In his sec- 
ond part Mr. Lochman showed how the name of 
the God of Jacob was a protection to them in dan- 
ger, and in his third part how God strengthens out 
of Zion. 

The war was soon over, with the battle of New 
Orleans fought and the danger averted. In 181 5, 
closely following the war, came the panic. But the 
country quickly recovered, and the farming dis- 



1 66 ^^R OF 1812 

tricts, especially, became very prosperous. Mean- 
time in 1813 and 1814 what the Lebanon coun- 
tians had long been desiring and contending for 
came to be a fact. They secured a county of their 
own, with Lebanon as the county-seat. On the 
nth of April the new Commissioners bought lot 
No. 52, at Eighth street and Walnut alley, from 
George Karch for the county prison. They paid 
$550 for it. At the same time they bought the lot 
at Eighth and Cumberland streets from Peter Shin- 
del for $200, and subsequently a half lot on the west 
from PhiHp Greenawalt for $1,200, for the purpose 
of erecting thereon a new Court House. They paid 
Stephen Hills, the architect of the old capitol at 
Harrisburg, $21,000 to erect the structure. The 
first court was held on December loth, 13th and 
14th, 1813. John Gloninger and David Krauss 
were the associate judges. In the year 18 14, on 
June nth, the third fire company of the place, call- 
ed The East End, was organized with Adam Ritsch- 
er as president. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

PASTOR LOCHMAN's DEPARTURE. 

PASTOR Lochman's career at Lebanon was 
now drawing to a close. He had baptized, 
confirmed and buried so many that it would 
be impossible for us to even mention the names 
of any number of these persons. In November of 
the year 1805, old Jacob Stieb, one of the most 
faithful and the only remaining original member of 
the church, was buried at the age of seventy years. 
His name was on the "Petition of 1768," and when 
he died he was a trustee of the congregation. In 
December he buried Robert Lowry, who died at 
the age of eighty-one, and had been blind for three 
years. Lowry was buried on the Mennonite grave- 
yard. In 1806 he buried the wife of old Jacob 
Focht, and in November his own son, George Hof- 
man Lochman, a little boy six years of age. In Sep- 
tember he buried old John Peter Richter at the 
age of seventy-three, and in May, of 1808, John 
Philip Fernsler, who was interred at the Qruppe 
church. On June 4th he buried Ludwig Shott, 
who died at the age of seventy-six. He had been 
baptized at the Hill church. On the 21st of March, 
1814, he buried Anthony Doebler at the age of sev- 
enty. This was the member that had presented the 
silver communion service in 1769. In March, 



l68 PASTOR LOCHMAN'S DEPARTURE 

1815, Conrad Hoffman died at the age of sixty- 
three years and seven months. Rev. Lochman 
was not in the habit of making remarks in the 
Church Record in addition to biographical details. 
We do not remember a single instance where he 
has done this except in the case of Mr. Hoffman. 
Of him he has written, "He was a worthy man and 
a Christian. Text: Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." 
Mr. Hoffman was a trustee when he died. That 
summer Mr. Lochman buried Richard Trotter at 
the age of seventy-four years. In April he buried 
John Michael Ramler at the age of sixty-four. His 
last funeral in Lebanon was that of Henry Gilbert, in 
August, 1 8 14. Henry Gilbert was the treasurer 
of Salem congregation. Mr. Lochman's baptisms 
extend to June, 1815. 

In the month of August, 181 5, Pastor Lochman 
preached his farewell sermon, in the introduction of 
which he says, "So then it has been decided my 
Dear Ones that we must part — We who have al- 
ready lived twenty years in intimate association 
and who have shared joy and sorrow with one an- 
other! Truly the thought cuts my heart much 
more than I supposed. 

"But why must he go then?" "Why then does 
he not stay with us?" This question you have a 
right to put, and I will answer it." And Dr. Loch- 
man proceeds to give several reasons for his reso- 
lution. First of all, he had never intended to stay 
more than ten years at Lebanon. Now the larger 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 1 69 

half of his Hfe is already past. Secondly, he feels an 
internal call to go. Thirdly, he is convinced that 
it would be useful in the matter of the education 
of his children. He wishes Salem the grace of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, and tells them that if his wish is 
to be fulfilled they must use the Means of Grace dil- 
igently. 

Rev. Lochman was pastor not only at Lebanon, 
but at Annville, at the Hill church, at Zoar and at 
Campbellstown, and no doubt the officers of all 
these churches were present to hear his last words 
to them. He left in the prime of Hfe with the best 
wishes of the whole community. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE COMING OF THE REV. WILLIAM ERNST. 




R 



EV. Lochman left in Au- 
gust. By the 7th of No- 
vember, 181 5, the Rev. 
William G. Ernst had accepted 
a call to the Lebanon church, 
and on the 12th of November 
he preached his introductory 
sermon. He arrived here dur- 
ing a period of great material prosperity. Work 
on the Union canal was probably going on to some 
extent. In 181 7 the Harrisburg and Reading turn- 
pike was built and ran through the center of the 
town. The fact that the town was a county-seat 
added to its growth. By 1821 the town was in- 
corporated into a borough. Lebanon had been 
erected into a borough in 1799 but the people never 
accepted the provisions of the act of Legislature of 
that time. 

The first election was held on the first Monday 
in May. Jacob Goodhart was chosen to be the 
Chief Burgess. John Nagel, Conrad Fasnacht, 
Jacob Light, Adam Ritscher, Leonard Green- 
wait and John Uhler constituted the first 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



171 



council. Rudolph Kelker was High Con- 
stable. The town extended from Seventh 
to Twelfth Street and from a little below Wal- 
nut Street on the South to Church Street on the 
North. It contained 300 residences, 10 taverns, 
10 stores, I flour mill, and a foundry. The Market 
house stood on the south side of Ninth Street, and 
it was here that the fairs were held. 

When the Rev. Mr. Ernst came to Lebanon he 
was still a young man. He was of a nervous tem- 
perament, active in the pulpit and his voice was 
pitched on a high key. He was a fine classical 
scholar. 

At this period the time of the pastor was taken 
greatly into requisition by the numerous funerals 
in the various congregations he served, particularly 
the funerals of children. They often interfered 
with the regular services, and the matter was 
brought before the congregation by advice of the 
Council. The burial grounds also were beginning 
to be too small for a congregation of our size, and 
on December 26th, 182 1, a Committee was ap- 
pointed to purchase a suitable piece of ground as 
a burial plot. The Committee consisted of George 
Reinoehl, Christian Suavely, Tobias Fernsler, 
Philip Fischer and Adam Ritscher. The Com- 
mittee acted, and purchased an acre of ground on 
the other side of the Quitopahila from Mr. William 
Moore. They paid $300.00 for it. This was the 
lot where the "Old Paper Mill" or rather the flour 



172 R^y- WILLIAM ERNST 

mill that was built by Myers and Showr now 
stands. But few were buried on the plot. On ac- 
count of the lowness of the ground the graves fre- 
quently became filled with water while they were 
being dug in wet weather. It was vacated early 
in the 50's and the remains of those buried there 
were reinterred in the Salem grave-yard along side 
the Eighth Street Wall by Mr. William Biecher.* 

At the meeting in 1825 the congregation resolv- 
ed that in the future all strangers and those who 
had not been living here for six months as well as 
those who had not paid for their grant for burial 
purposes according to the constitution, should be 
buried upon our new (that is the watery) cemetery. 

The parochial school has been abandoned for 
some years and it became customary to rent the 
building to a teacher who would conduct a pay 
school there on his own responsibility. This cus- 
tom had been in vogue for some years. Already in 
1823 Samuel Uhler inserted the following an- 
nouncement in the Lebanon paper : 

EDUCATION. 

The subscriber begs leave to inform the Citizens 
of Lebanon and its vicinity, that he has rented the 
Lutheran Schoolhouse, formerly occupied by Mr. 
Blocker, and has commenced a School in the Eng- 
lish language on Tuesday, the 12th instant. He 
intends to teach Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. 

•J. J. Embich. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



173 



He hopes by strict attention to his business to merit 
and receive a share of the pubHc patronage. 

Sam. H. Uhler. 
Lebanon, June 15, 1823. 

The seventh day of July, 1826, was a great day 
for Lebanon. The town was celebrating the fiftieth 
anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. 
The day was ushered in with the pealing of the 
Church bells early in the morning. The military 
including the surviving soldiers of the Revolution- 
ary war who lived in this district assembled in Mar- 
ket Square at ten o'clock in the morning. There 
was a grand procession which was headed by two 
marshalls; then came the Lebanon Cavalry, The 
Independent Guards, and the Lebanon Blues. Two 
more marshalls followed and then the citizens fell 
in line. After two more marshalls and the music 
the Town and County Officials took up their posi- 
tion. Behind them followed a number of young 
girls dressed in white. The last division headed by 
two marshalls, was composed of the clergy of the 
place and the speakers and readers of the day. The 
Lebanon paper reports that the Rev. Mr. Ernst 
made a patriotic and very appropriate address in 
the German language. The Honorable Curr read 
the Declaration of Independence. Colonel Na- 
thaniel Hall delivered a beautiful and spirited Eng- 
lish address. During all these exercises deep si- 
lence reigned. After they were over, the military 
were invited to the homes of the citizens, and it is 



174 



REV. WILLIAM ERNST 



expressly intimated that they behaved themselves 
with great decency and departed to their homes 
in order and peace. 

In February, 1827, Lebanon experienced one of 
the most sensational and tragic days in all its his- 
tory. The occasion was the execution of James 
Quinn, the first murderer ever hanged in the town. 
Der Beohachter of February i6th gives the follow- 
ing account of it in the German language. ''J^"^^s 
Quinn was executed last Friday near this town. 
Perhaps 8000 people were gathered about the spot as 
spectators. Four Companies of Cavalry and seven 
Companies of Infantry all under the command of 
Colonel Doebler, accompanied the Sheriff from the 
prison to the place of execution. The prisoner was 
dressed in white, and was supported by the Priests 
of the Romish Church, and also by Rev. Ernst and 
Strein, Lutheran Ministers. The prisoner seemed 
pale, quiet and penitent." The paper then goes on 
to describe the thrill of horror that passed through 
the multitude when the rope broke at the first at- 
tempt and the second hanging of the prisoner. 

Another great event in 1827 was the completion 
of the Union Canal which had been building during 
this period especially since 1821. When on that 
spring day the first boat, over fifty feet long, named 
"Alpha, of Tulpehocken," glided through the water 
and by North Lebanon on its way westward, the 
wonder and delight of the populace knew no 
bounds. Many wiseacres had prophesied that it 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 1 75 

would be impossible to keep the upper levels of the 
canal on limestone beds full of water. 

A writer who saw the boat approaching and pass- 
ing through the tunnel which was used then for the 
first time became very enthusiastic. Who would 
have thought, he said, that a canal would flow and 
boats would glide through the fields which I myself 
had plowed many a time, and that in place of the 
sprouting corn which I had planted on the spot, rip- 
ples of water should rise on the bosom of a stream. 
The description of the event in the daily paper tells 
us that it was proposed to erect a pumping station 
and a feeder at the eastern end of Lebanon. 

At this time Peter Shindel was Burgess from 
1823 to 1826. Frederick Stoever was Burgess un- 
til 1827, and Christian Suavely until 1831. Joseph 
Gleim was Postmaster. In the year 1828 the Rev. 
Mr. Heister the pastor of the Reformed Church 
died. He had served in this connection since the 
year 1800, and his funeral on the nth of February, 
was attended by a large number of people. In the 
spring of 1830 we were greeted with the announce- 
ment that the management of the Lebanon Acad- 
emy had secured the services of The Rev. Mr. Ernst 
as principal of the Academy, and that the languages 
especially would be taught with great accuracy. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

GOVERNOR JOHN ANDREW SHULZE AND OTHER LEBA- 
NON HISTORY. 

CHRISTOPHER UHLER the old master- 
builder of Salem Church had died in the 
year 1804. He appears to have been one 
of the part owners and the active head of the Leba- 
non Land Company organized by Stoever. At 
his death the various heirs of the original proprie- 
tors desired a partition to be made, and this was 
done. A deed poll confirming the partition of the 
ground rents of the Borough of Lebanon was made 
returnable to the Dauphin County Court in De- 
cember, 1804. 

From the second to the fourth decades of this 
century Lutherans were prominent in political and 
Legislative offices. In 18 14 Peter Shindel went to 
the House of Representatives twice. In 18 17 John 
Uhler went to the House of Representatives and 
again in 1819 and in 1820. In 1819 Adam Ritscher 
was sent to the House of Representatives and again 
in 1822. In the thirtys John Krauss and George 
Weidman were sent there by our County. But of 
all the prominent Lutherans in Lebanon there was 
none who attained the distinction which was en- 
joyed by John Andrew Shulze. Johann Andreas 
Melchoir Shulze v/as born in the Lutheran parson- 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



177 



age at Christ Church, Tulpehocken, on July 19th, 
1775. Rev. Drs. Muhlenberg and Kunze stood for 
him at his baptism. He studied for the ministry 
with his uncle, Dr. Kunze, in New York, and was 
ordained in 1800. 

From 1796 on he was a licensed member of our 
Synod, and became an esteemed pastor of congre- 
gations in Berks county for six years. In 1802 
rheumatic affection disabled him and obliged him 
to relinquish the ministry. In 1806 he was elected 
a member of the Legislature. In 181 3 Governor 
Snyder appointed him Surveyor General of the 
State, and then gave him the positions of Register, 
Recorder, Prothonotary, Clerk of the Orphans' 
Court and Clerk in the Sessions Court of Lebanon 
County. In October, 1 821, he was chosen to repre- 
sent Lebanon County in the House of Represen- 
tatives. In 1822 he became a State Senator, and 
1823 he was elected Governor by a majority of over 
25,000. In 1826 he was re-elected by the great- 
est majority ever cast for a Governor in the State 
of Pennsylvania. He received 72,000 votes while 
his antagonist got about 1,000. In his Guberna- 
torial oflBce he distinguished himself for large views, 
great prudence, good judgment, and the appoint- 
ment of honest officials. He resided on Ninth 
street in the building now occupied by Dr. Joseph 
Lemberger. He attended service in the Salem 
church and the Communion Record still bears his 
name together with that of his wife to show that on 
May 13th, 1823, on Whitsunday shortly after his 



178 GOV. JOHN ANDREW SHULZE 

election as Governor, he received the communion 
here. Four days later, on May 17th, his son, Au- 
gustus, was confirmed in the Salem church. 

The year 1820 in Lebanon signalizes a number 
of events. The Lebanon Courier was established. 
The First United Brethren church was built. It 
stood on the road branching ofif diagonally at Sev- 
enth and Lehman and leading to Pinegrove. To- 
wards the end of the decade there was a Methodist 
class of four persons in Lebanon, of which George 
Gleim and wife were two. There was no Methodist 
organization until 1833. In 1830 the first Evangel- 
ical church in the town was built on the present lo- 
cation on Chestnut street. In the same year the 
Lebanon Fire Company was organized with John 
Shindel as President. Rev. Ernst took charge of 
the Lebanon Academy at this time, and remained 
at its head until the year 1834. Another principal 
was elected but he did not seem to succeed very 
well, and Rev. Ernst was again placed in charge, 
and occupied the position until 1839. 

Rev. Ernst was an extraordinarily capable man 
and when he was examined by the Synod in 1812, 
the unusual testimony was given, "The sermon of 
Ernst is very excellent; he has fine attainments." 
He applied to the Synod in the year 1808 for the 
office of Catechist. In 181 1 he was licensed to 
preach, and was ordained in 1816. 

Among those that Rev. Ernst buried were Jacob 
Karch, age y6, and John Embich, aged 65, in 1818; 
Philip Fisher, aged 49; John Martin Yensel, aged 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



179 



74; David Krause, Esq., aged 63, and John George 
Gebhart, aged 76; in 1821 he buried the young or- 
ganist and school teacher of the congregation who 
had come over from Germany and married Rebecca 
George. His name was Christopher Rettig; in 1825 
he buried Samuel Meily, aged 64, and Elizabeth 
Ernst, probably his mother, aged 73. In 1829 he 
buried a trustee, Anastasius Glasbrenner at the age 
of jy; in 1830, John Weidman, at the age of 74, 
and Bernard Embich, of whom he remarks, *'War 
lang ein Gemeinsglied allbier." In 183 1 George 
Gloninger, aged yy, John George Reinoehl, who 
was born in 1752 and had fifteen children. Of him 
Rev. Ernst says, ''War lang ein brauchbares GHed 
der Gemeinde. Starb als trustee, derselben;" and 
John Conrad Reinoehl, aged 76. In 1833 he buried 
David Krause; in 1834 he buried John Philip 
Greenawalt, aged 73; he states that he was an old 
inhabitant of the town. He was buried on the Re- 
formed cemetery. In 1836 Pastor Ernst buried 
John George Vogt, who was born in 1758. He says 
of Father Vogt, ''War ein redHcher Man, lang ein 
Gemeinsgleid und starb as Trustee." The last en- 
try of funerals by Rev. Ernst is on May 28th, 1838. 



CHAPTER XXX. 



THE REVEREND JONATHAN RUTHRAUFF. 




R 



EV. Jonathan Ruthrauff as- 
sumed charge of Salem 
church in December, 1837. 
iHe was thirty-six years of age at the 
time. The resignation of the Rev. Mr. 
Ernst, which made the pastorate va- 
cant, is to be attributed to the poor 

condition of his health. Rev. Ruth- 

vf^rviMiJwAi^^ raufif had been ordained in 1827, had 
preached for several months as a missionary in Cen- 
tral Pennsylvania, and subsequently acted as a sup- 
ply for the new St. Matthew's congregation in Phil- 
adelphia. He was invited to become the pastor of 
the latter congregation but declined, and took 
charge of churches first at Lewistown, and in 1829 
at Hanover. The great event of his ministry in 
Lebanon was the introduction of what was then 
called ''New Measures'* in the services of the Salem 
church. "It was at Lebanon that Mr. Ruthrauff 
first introduced the use of the Anxious Seat. He 
was induced to give it his sanction under the fol- 
lowing circumstance. During the exercises of a 
protracted meeting which was in progress, on a 
certain evening when the services were held in his 
Lecture Room, a woman, uninvited, in the presence 



OLD SALEM CHURCH jgi 

of the congregation, came forward in deep distress, 
and knelt down before him at the front seat. This 
produced in the audience an unusal degree of feel- 
ing. Without any previous intention on his part, 
but influenced by a strong sense of duty, the pas- 
tor tendered an invitation to all others who desired 
personal instructions, or an interest in the suppli- 
cations of the Church, to come forward."* 

A large part of the congregation were very 
strongly opposed to this method of conducting ser- 
vices, and as both parties were very determined, a 
grave struggle ensued. On the one part it was main- 
tained by the pastor that the congregation was not 
in a proper spiritual condition, and he referre'd to 
the difference between the conduct of the members 
in ordinary life and that prescribed by the consti- 
tution of the Church. He also maintained that the 
English language ought to be introduced to a much 
greater extent in the services of the church, and 
that the Sunday-school should be made a much 
more prominent feature of worship. 

Dr. H. H. Roedel,** a son-in-law of Rev. Ruth- 
rauff, in the History of the East Pennsylvania Synod, 
page 1 66, makes the statement that horse-racing, 
gambling, and drinking to excess were practices 
not infrequently indulged in by members of the 
Lebanon community, who claimed positions in the 

•Written by a friend of Rev. Ruthrauff in the Evangelical Review for 
January, 1858. 

••To whom I am Indebted for a number of facts in this connection, 
and in connection with the life of Dr. Lochman, and who has kindly 
placed pictures of these two men at my disposa,!. 



l82 REV. JONATHAN RUTHRAUFF 

church as officers, and that when Rev. Ruthrauff re- 
fused to install such officers, the strife began. On 
the other hand it is said that the methods adopted 
by the pastor were altogether antagonistic to the 
Church Constitution and to the teaching of the 
Unaltered Augsburg Confession, to which the 
Church was committed, and that in calling on mem- 
bers in the congregation and the Sunday-school 
to olTer prayer extempore and in introducing the 
ideas of conversion prevalent in the Methodist 
Church, the pastor was not faithful to the Consti- 
tution which he signed. The pastor, whom his fa- 
ther-in-law, Dr. Lochman, already had forseen as 
a very determined antagonist of those with whom 
he could not agree, was opposed by elderly men 
equally determined. Among these latter were old 
George Reinoehl, Michael Braun, Adam Ritscher, 
Levi Uhler, David Vogt, Israel Embich, Daniel and 
Andrew Embich and Henry Hoffman. For a time 
there were two Church Councils and two janitors. 
Troubles of a similar nature were arising at this 
time in the Hill Church, of which Rev. Ruthrauff 
was pastor also, and the excitement was very great. 
Finally the doors of Salem Church were locked on 
the pastor, and barricaded, and he was unable to 
hold service. On the 17th of February, 1844, an 
election was held to ascertain whether Rev. Jon- 
athan Ruthrauff shall be the pastor of this congre- 
gation in the future or not, and it was decided by 
a vote of 122 to i that he should not so remain. 
Meantime the party in favor of the pastor com- 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



183 



posed of a large number of the young and active 
material of the church, had withdrawn, and on the 
14th of March, 1844, had secured incorporation of 
"The Evangelical Lutheran Congregation of the 
Borough of Lebanon and its vicinity," by an Act 
of Legislature. This was the beginning of the Zion 
church. The lot on Ninth street was bought and 
the original edifice was erected there at a cost of 
over twelve thousand dollars.* 

Rev. Ruthraufif was residing in the parsonage, 
and was compelled to vacate the same by law. Prior 
to the disturbance Rev. Ruthraufif had been a 



♦Among the persons prominent in the new movement were Jacob B. 
Weldman, George W. Klein, John Weidman, Edward A. Uhler. An- 
thony S. Ely, Henry Derr, Andrew Reinoehl, Levi Uhler, William 
Ritscher, George Waltz, Henry Zimmerman, John Siegrlst, John G. 
Snavely, Abraham Shenk, Jacob Swartz, Jonas Mohr, John Lowry, 
David Fox, John Reinoehl, Abraham Hostetter, Michael Lauser, Jos- 
eph Zimmerman, Junior, Andrew Fasnacht. Charles Fox, Levi Schools, 
Henry S, Zimmerman, Henry Rohland, William Derr, Leonard Zimmer- 
man, George Derr, John Fox, Senior, Orth Light, George Smith, Ju- 
nior, Cyrus Zimmerman, Henry Karmany, Cyrus Doebler, John Ditz, 
John Artz, William Smith, Henry Lowry, George Brooks, Henry Em- 
rick, Charles Brotherllne, John Stains, Edward L. Shulze, George Shott, 
G. S., Frederick Embich, Frederick Beckley, Joseph Dailey, Jona- 
than Walter, Cornwall, Joseph Weaver, William Coleman, John P. 
Sanderson, Christian Henry, Jonathan Ruthrauff, Christian Snavely, 
John Uhler, Cyrus K. Snavely, Levi Kline, John Fees, Jacob Roedel, 
Henry Hlxenheiser, John Heim, Joseph Zimmerman. Israel Karch, Henr>' 
Rise, Peter Zimmerman. Emanuel Bentz, Jacob Mohr. George Fauber, 
Jacob Garde, Peter Shott, Peter Fauber, Henry Fauber, Henry B. Oves, 
Lantz Hltz, Benjamin Moore, John H. Fox, Charles Reinoehl, Peter 
Strickler, Augustus Reinoehl, John George, Jacob Stoever, Henry Hau- 
ser, Joseph Stoever, Conrad Keim, John McCloud, Michael Wagner, 
Michael Hoffman, David Karmany, Adam Rise, Junior, William Rein- 
oehl, Michael Zimmerman, Samuel Lutz, John Phraner, Jacob Miller, 
Simon U. George, George Fryslnger, John H. Elllotdein, John Shott, 
Qottleib Krelder, Joseph H. Uhler, and George Snaveley, Conrad R. 
Shindle, Peter Heso. 



l84 ^^^' JONATHAN RUTHRAUFF 

very active and faithful pastor, and his sermons were 
always distinguished by great spiritual fervor. Be- 
tween 1837 and 1840 he had confirmed Catherine 
Alleman, Lucetta Kraus, William Fauber, John 
and William Focht, Andrew Reinoehl, and Jere- 
miah Strayer, together with many others. In 1841 
151 persons communed, and in the fall of 1840 and 
1 84 1 he had an English communion for the first 
time, in which about 100 persons participated 
but their names are not given in the Church 
Record. 

As we look at these thrilling times after a lapse 
over a half a century, we feel how difficult 
it is to say just the right thing in regard to them 
in a few words penned on the spur of the moment. 
Old Salem may be glad that she has preserved her 
doctrinal integrity inviolate, and may learn how 
necessary it is to have due regard to the language 
and other interests of the rising generation. Zion 
has been obliged to learn that the older a congrega- 
tion grows the more difficult does it become to re- 
move every taint of wickedness and worldHness 
from the offices of the church and to exclude all the 
worldly-minded from church membership. Pastor 
RuthraufT was in ill health for some years and af- 
ter he had suiTered greatly, and had been disabled 
from the active duties of the ministry, he died on 
the 23d of July, 1850. There were 18 ministers 
present at his funeral. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



THE SECOND PASTORATE OF DR. ERNST. THE OR- 
GANIZATION OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 




T 



HE people of Old Salem, 
in their trouble, request- 
ed Father Ernst to re- 
assume charge of the congrega- 
tion. He did this in 1844. One 
of the first steps taken was on 
June 4th at a meeting of the 
Council to appoint a committee 
Interior of Old Salem up to i8i8. ''to estabHsh 3i Suttday-school in 
our congregation." The members of this commit- 
tee were George Shott, Matthew Gilbert, John 
Marquat, Emanuel Meily, Jacob Lanz, George 
Reinoehl, Sr., Michael Beckley and Adam Ritscher. 
A Lutheran Sunday-school had been held in Bene- 
ficial Hall on Tenth street in the morning and a 
Reformed Sunday-school in the afternoon. Many 
scholars attended both schools. The new Sunday- 
school was organized in 1845, Levi Uhler becoming 
the first superintendent. Mr. Uhler was also the 
organist and leader of singing in the congregation 
and took an active part in all its affairs. The infant 
school was organized in 1849 by the wife of Dr. 
Ernst. Miss Catherine Ely (now Mrs. Toblias 
Reinoehl) was the assistant superintendent. When 



1 86 DR. ERNSTS SECOND PASTORATE 

Mrs. Ernst left Lebanon in the Fall of 1849, ^^s. 
Reinoehl became the Superintendent of the Infant 
Department. 

In 1847 the old Constitution of the church was 
again amended and was reprinted in 1849. The re- 
prints of this Constitution, which are very accessi- 
ble, contain a full list of the male members of the 
congregation in 1848 and 1849. Their number runs 
up to 199. In 1848 and 1848 an extensive remod- 
eling of the church took place. The exterior of the 
building was enlarged on the west, two stories were 
put into the structure. The vestibule was placed 
on the western side, although it was originally in- 
tended to place the latter on the Eighth street side. 
Below, the building was divided into a Lecture room 
and a Sunday-school room, and an Infant-school 
room was then also partitioned ofif. The Build- 
ing Committee consisted of Michael Beckley, Jacob 
Reinoehl, David Hoffman, and Israel Embich. The 
contractors were Franklin Walter and Jonathan 
Barto. The price paid for the renovation was $2350. 
There are two elaborate sets of specifications still in 
existence. The picture at the head of this chapter 
will give the reader a fair idea of the interior of the 
church before the remodeling took place. There 
was a gallery on three sides. The organ was in the 
west gallery. The entrances were on Willow 
street. The pulpit was on the broad north side of 
the church, on a high post with a sounding board 
above. The altar was the old style square, sur- 
rounded by the small, high, square railing. 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 187 

Lebanon was growing in churches at this time. Be- 
tween 1846 and 1848, the old stone United Breth- 
ren Church on North Ninth street, and the Mora- 
vian Church on Tenth street were erected, and the 
Roman Catholic Church was enlarged. The Per- 
severance Fire Company was organized in 1849. 

On the 6th of June, 1849, the I02d meeting of 
the Synod was held in Lebanon, and Rev. Dr. 
Ernst was elected President of the body. On the 
Fourth of July of that year, the Sunday-school held 
a celebration in Light's woods, near the Lebanon 
furnaces, and here Jacob Shindel read the Decla- 
ration of Independence and Dr. Ernst made a 
short address. On the first day of September the 
community was startled to hear that the old pas- 
tor was dead. His funeral was one of the largest 
ever held in Lebanon, and went in procession 
around Cumberland and Ninth streets to the 
church. Dr. Ernst was a graduate of Princeton 
and had been married twice. It was the second 
Mrs. Ernst that our older people knew so well. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE ARRIVAL OF REV. G. F. KROTEL. 

WHEN Synod met in Lebanon in June of 
1849, everybody was captivated by the 
address of a young preacher from Phil- 
adelphia, named G. F. Krotel. It was very na- 
tural, therefore, that he should be thought of at 
once on the death of Father Ernst. The following 
description of his call and entrance upon the pas- 
torate and of his ''Principal Man," old George 
Reinoehl, written by Dr. Krotel himself for print 
many years ago is so full of grace and life that it 
cannot be improved on as a description of the state 
of afifairs in Lebanon then: 

'T distinctly remember my impression of him. A 
venerable friend in the ministry received a letter, 
inquiring after me, in regard to a vacancy in the 
congregation of which Father George was the prin- 
cipal man. I was young then, and read that letter 
over and over again; it was a very simple, earnest 
letter, signed by Father George. It made a most 
pleasing impression upon my friend and myself, 
and I already pictured the outward appearance of 
the writer to myself. The letter was evidently 
written by a man of education, and good common 
sense. I agreed to visit the charge. It was my 
first important journey, one that might exert a 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 189 

lasting influence upon my future life. I had often 
heard of the town to which I was going, and it 
seemed the very pinnacle of honor to be invited 
thither. After a weary ride I arrived, and soon 
found myself hospitably at home in comfortable 
quarters, not, however, in the house of Father 
George .... The morning came and in an hour 
more the bell would summon me to church. 
The rain, too, poured down in torrents, and I did 
not expect many hearers. Father George was ex- 
pected to come before church to escort me thither. 
I had expected to see a man whose dress and out- 
ward demeanor were, what men are pleased to call 
'those of a gentleman;' for you know that by bad 
education we are easily led to look for gentle 
hearts and manners under a genteel outside, al- 
though the two are not inseparable. My principal 
man was aged some seventy years; he wore an old 
suit that had not the fashionable color, not the 
fashionable cut, but had evidently been made when 
I was a baby. His hat was broader at top than 
near the rim, he wore thick, heavy boots. He had 
an old cotton umbrella under his arm, which I did 
not consider needful at all, for his hat and coat 
would not have been injured by the most violent 
rain, nor permitted any to reach his skin. He wore 
a very large pair of colored spectacles, which at 
first concealed his eyes. He greeted me with an old- 
fashioned bow, and a vice-like grasp of the hand, 
and entered at once into conversation. As I looked 



igo REV. G. F. KROTEL ARRIVES 

more closely upon his face, I considered it one of 
the most benevolent that I had ever seen. His eyes 
sparkled with the light of intelligence and good na- 
ture, and before I went to church, I felt as if I had 
known him for years. I preached to a very full 
house : the Lord blessed me with strength, and the 
people invited me with one voice to become their 
pastor: no one was more urgent than my old 
friend. Suffice it to say, I went home, reflected, 
consented, and with my wife, — my whole family 
then, — removed to my sphere of action. And now 
I had abundant opportunity to become acquainted 
with my principal man. He was, and had been sole 
leader of the large congregation; he had been an 
officer of the church for forty years, with very brief 
intervals; he had been tried in times of very serious 
diflficulty, and was not found wanting. Although 
a man of no education, and no fluency of speech, 
he, by his prudence, his natural sagacity, honesty, 
and true Lutheran firmness, had guided the vessel 
through the storm with a strong hand, and had 
gained the confidence of his brethren more than 
ever. And so it was now. I saw him very fre- 
quently, almost daily, during my first weeks and 
months. He was not rich, but had enough to sup- 
port him and his wife, who was as worthy as him- 
self. He would frequently speak his mind on my 
sermons, and gave me excellent paternal advice and 
encouragement. Whatever was to be done. Father 
George was called upon ; any repairs about the par- 
sonage, he was the man: in the meetings of the 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



191 



Council, he was the leader, not with set speeches, 
for he could not make one, but by his honest, ster- 
hng, good sense, which he brought forth with many 
gesticulations. He never forced his measures, but 
always listened to the opinions of his brethren, and 
was the first to acknowledge his errors. I never 
knew him to quarrel with any man; he received ev- 
erything with the placidity of a patriarch. When 
any dissatisfaction was perceptible among men or 
women in the congregation, he would go in his 
old-fashioned way, and have a patriarchal talk with 
them, and never without success. Although be- 
longing to the past generation, and not imbued 
with the progressive spirit of the age, he was al- 
ways ready to encourge every good undertaking, 
however new, and w?is in this respect the youngest 
old man I ever saw. He was a staunch Lutheran 
of the old school, and had reason for the faith that 
was in him. He read his Bible faithfully, and the 
works of our old divines, especially Luther, whose 
rich and hearty saying fell from his lips with pecu- 
liar action." 

When the new pastor arrived crowds flocked to 
hear him preach. Both his sermons and his mag- 
nificent voice have not been forgotten to this day. 
He confirmed an extraordinarily large class of cat- 
echumens, among whom were John and Samuel 
Fies, George Gassert, Solomon Smith, Michael Ro- 
land, John Stanley, William Biecher, Henry Em- 
bich, Tobias Reinoehl, Jacob Shindel, and many 
others.* In 1853, Dr. Krotel resigned here 



1^2 R^^' G- ^' KROTEL ARRIVES 

to become pastor of Trinity church, Lancaster. The 
regret was universal. One who came home from 
service on the morning when he preached his fare- 
well sermon reported: 'The pastor is weeping, 
and the whole congregation." 

•In Father Ernst's day and the time preceding, the yirl catechumens 
always wore white dresses and white caps, and assembled in Mrs. Hess' 
house, across Willow street, to proceed in procession to the church. 
Up to Dr. Krotel's time the caps were still worn, but at that time their 
use was discontinued. 



'iMiM^ 




CHAPTER XXXIIL 

PASTORS HOFFMAN AND HENRY F. MILLER. 

THE successor of Dr. Kro- 
tel at Lebanon was Rev. 
John S. Hoffman, who 
delivered his introductory sermon 
on August 31, 1853. He was a 
tall man, verging toward middle 
age, retiring and studious in his 

habits. The chief external event 

^'^'^^"-ir'^''^ •^^'IPIP during his pastorate was the pur- 
chase of our large, deep-toned bell. 

B. W. Schmauk, who had become pastor of Zion 
Church, Lancaster, was invited to preach a trial 
sermon ''in both languages," but declined, and on 
October 28th, 1854, Rev. Henry S. Miller, of Nor- 
ristown, was unanimously elected pastor of the con- 
gregation. 

Both Rev. Miller and his wife were of a very de- 
cided type of character. Mrs. Miller especially was 
exceedingly active in all public work. Many of our 
members went to her school. When Rev. Miller and 
wife arrived, Peter Ege was the Superintendent of 
the Sunday-school, and A. H. Embich the assis- 
tant, while Miss Margaret Ralston (now Mrs. 
Schools) was Superintendent of the Infant Depart- 
ment. In 1855, M^s. Miller became Superintend- 
ent of the Infant Department. 

In 1855 Salem church purchased the release from 
ground rent on church and parsonage from Adam 



194 



PASTORS HOFFMAN AND MILLER 



Grittinger. In this same year, we believe, the 
Rev. A. Abel came to town and made the first be- 
ginnings of an Episcopal church here, and the fol- 
lowing year the Roman Catholic church purchased 
its burial plot on East Chestnut St. In 1858 the 
Moravian church was destroyed by a disastrous fire. 
In 1859 the Salem congregation finally acted in 
its pressing need of a cemetery and bought the 
property on East Chestnut St. and laid it out in 
lots. The cornerstone of the St. John's Reformed 
church was laid, and the building dedicated in i860, 
Rev. Henry Harbaugh, the gifted Pennsylvania- 
German poet, becoming first pastor. 

The clouds of the great civil war now hung over 
the horizon and on the i8th of April, 1861, Fort 
Sumter was fired on. A war meeting was held in 
the court house six days thereafter. Throughout 
the long struggle Lebanon was conspicuously loyal 
to the Union. Many of the men of Old Salem, in- 
cluding her Sunday-school Superintendent, and 
her organist and leader of choir,* were away in the 
army. 

In 1858 Jacob Shindel had been Superintendent 
of the Sunday-school. In '59 he was succeeded 
by Charles Meily, and in '61 by A. H. Embich. In 
'62 John Reinoehl became Superintendent of the 
School, and has remained so ever since. In the 
early part of 1864 Father Miller resigned and re- 
moved to Phoenixville.* 



♦John Stanley, who was leader of the 93d Regriment— now the Perse- 
verance — Band. 

•During the last few yeeirs of his life he became helpless and finally 
was totally blind. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



THE FIRST PASTORATE OF REV. B. W. SCHMAUK. 



T was a bright day In the last 

week of June when a tall, 

slim, rather youthful man, 

with quick step and buoyant 

look in his clear, thoughtful eye 

arrived in Lebanon. 

Mr. Schmauk, who was born 
in Philadelphia, and had been 
educated in his uncle's school there, and was a 
graduate of the Philadelphia High School, and who 
had studied theology under the Rev. Dr. W. J. 
Mann, had been in the ministry for just eleven 
years. He was installed on the first of July, 1864. 
Among the leading members of the congregation 
at this time were old Samuel Reinoehl, George 
Hoffman, Henry Siegrist, Michael Brown, H. T. 
HofTman, and D. T. Werner. Mr. Henry Em- 
bich, now the sexton, was then the organist of the 
congregation.* A young man by the name of C. 




•He Is deeply Interested In the Church's history, and from his model of 
the building as It stood prior to 1M8, our cut of the same has been drawn. 



96 



REV. B. W. SCHMAUK 




R. Lantz, who had just returned from the war, 
settled in Lebanon and began teach- 
ing school. Before long he entered 
the Sunday school of Salem and 
taught a class there. Becoming 
a member of the choir he remained 
in it for nearly a quarter of a cen- 
tury and was its leader for nearly 
lifteen years. He was also secre- 
tary of the Church council for about 
twenty-five years. Shortly after 
Pulpit and Chancel of Salem Church. Mr. Schmauk arHved, the Church 
was entirely remodeled. The galleries were lower- 
ed, the whole arrangement of pulpit and altar was 
changed, and the arch in the rear of the pulpit with 
the picture of the Resurrection in the back ground 
was added. In 1866 old widow Yensel, whose hus- 
band had been the sexton of the Church, was 
found dead one morning in her kitchen. Her hus- 
band in 1850 had willed that the congregation 
should come into possession of about an acre of 
ground on the east side of Eighth Street, from 
where the house of Charles H. Killinger now is 
down to the creek. Unfortunately the property 
was sold several years afterward by the Congrega- 
tion for a comparatively small sum of money. At 
this time Rev. Schmauk made a vigorous effort to 
resuscitate the parochial school of the Congrega- 
tion, and secured an organist and teacher, a native 
German by the name of Hugo Lenare. Miss Kate 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 197 

Zweltzig was the Superintendent of the Infant 
School and remained so during the whole pastorate. 
Miss Theresa F. Schmauk was Asst. Superintend't. 
In 1867 the congregation was regularly incorpor- 
ated, A. Stanley Ulrich, Esq., being the attorney. 
The Congregation celebrated the 150th Jubilee of 
the Reformation, and the pastor and members 
raised quite a large sum as a Jubilee Offering for 
the Seminary and College. A few years later 
George H. Reinoehl gave $1,000 to found a schol- 
arship in Muhlenberg College, and A. Stanley 
Ulrich, Esq., for many years a trustee of the insti- 
tution, gave a similar sum. Other smaller sums 
were also given for the same purpose. Both Adol- 
phus and George Reinoehl now were taking that 
active part, the one as the advocate of progress and 
the other as the financier of the congregation which 
they continued to assume up to the time of their 
death. This year the congregation decided to 
build a new and more modern parsonage. It sold 
28 feet on the north side of the parsonage lot to 
John Weimer for $2,500.00 and awarded a contract 
to Esaias Gingrich and others for the erection of a 
new three story double brick building to be finish- 
ed October ist, 1869. The cost of the parsonage 
was about $6,000.00. Two years earlier, in 1867 
several churches were built in close proximity to the 
Salem structure and much fear was expressed at the 
time lest the sound of the voices in singing and 



198 



REV, B. W. SCHMAUK 



preaching in one or other of the churches might in- 
terfere with each other. 

On Christmas afternoon, 1866, 
Rev. Schmauk began preaching to 
the scattered General Council Lu- 
therans in Annville. A new con- 
gregation was organized there by 
him on February 29th, 1869, and 
a brick church edifice was erected 
and dedicated that same year. 
Rev. Schmauk's pastoral care at 
this time extended over a number 
of Congregations. He preach- 
ed at Myerstown, Jonestown, Palmyra, Cornwall, 
and Annville. Already in the Fall of 1864 he be- 
gan to preach, as father Miller had occasionally 
done, in the School-house between the Hills behind 
the Cornwall anthracite furnace, and from that time 
on held services there every four weeks in the after- 
noon as regularly as possible. He began to suffer 
from throat trouble, and in 1876 resigned the Salem 
Congregation and took charge of the new St. 
Michael's Church at Allentown. 




CHAPTER XXXV. 

THE PASTORATE OF REV. G. H. TRABERT, D.D. 




O 



N the 25th of January, 
1877, the Rev. George H. 
Trabert from Elizabeth- 
town took charge of the Salem 
Congregation. He was very ac- 
tive as pastor, aggressive in secur- 
ing new material for the Congrega- 
tion, and interested in the out-of- 
door avocations of the town and 
country people. He at once organized a Young 
People's Society, and took steps to develope and 
enlarge the Sunday School. A Senior department 
was added to the Sunday school, and Mrs. Trabert 
became the Superintendent of the Infant Depart- 
ment. A very sad event of their pastorate was the 
loss of four children who were buried in one week 
at a time when diphtheria was prevalent in the com- 
munity. While they resided at the parsonage the 
new brown stone Roman Catholic Church was con- 
secrated, and in 1879 and 1880 St. Luke's Episco- 
pal Church was erected, largely through the instru- 
mentality of Mr. Robert H. Coleman, who had as- 
sumed charge of his own afifairs shortly before this 
time and was expecting to develop Lebanon into 
a large industrial community. Rev. Trabert was 



200 ^^^- ^- ^- TRABERT, D.D. 

called to care for the English Lutheran Church in 
Minneapolis and resigned the Salem charge on the 
first of March, 1883. 

Rev. W. G. Laitzle, a retired pastor who was re- 
siding in Lebanon at the time took charge of the 
Congregation in the interim, holding services and 
performing the necessary ministerial acts. He con- 
tinued to be a member of the congregation until 
his death in July. 1894. Rev. B. F. Apple, of Stone 
Church, was elected as the successor of Rev. Tra- 
bert. but declined the call. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE PASTORATE OF REVS. B. W. AND T. E. SCHMAUK. 




O 



N the first Sunday in July, 1883, 
Revs. B. W. and T. E. Schmauk 
preached their introductory ser- 
mons in Salem. Immediately thereafter the 
Church was closed and remodeled. It stood 
windowless and doorless for weeks. The 
cedar shingles on the steeple were found to 
be in good condition and hard as a rock. They 
had been imported from Europe and presented to 
the Church one hundred years ago and had been in 
the weather for that time. The roof was covered 
with tin. The windows and doors were enlarged 
and the lower floor was sunk two feet. The high 
sandstone steps and railings on the exterior were re- 
moved. The inner walls were replastered and the 
ceilings frescoed. The old box pews were made 
less clumsy. The floor was covered with five hun- 
dred yards of Brussels carpet presented by the Mite 
Society. Stained glass windows were introduced 
and a new building 30x36 feet was erected for the 
use of the infant school. The building committee 
comprised the following members: George Gas- 
sert, George H. Reinoehl, C. W. Carmany, H. T. 
Hoffman, and Solomon Stine, together with the 
trustees David Steckbeck, Henry Louser and David 



202 



REVS. B. W. AND T. E. SCHMAUK 



Werner. C. W. Carmany was especially active in 
this service. Not so long thereafter a large new 
organ with three manuals, twenty-two stops and 
over nineteen hundred pipes was placed in the main 
body of the Church at a cost of between three and 
four thousand dollars. At the annual meeting in 
1883 a committee consisting of the pastors, and 
Messrs. Adolphus Reinoehl, Baltzer Kuntzelman, 
William A. Huber, William Byerly, C. R. Lantz, 
and Rev. W. G. Laitzle w^as appointed to revise the 
charter and constitution of the 
Congregation. The Committee 
met weekly for many months and 
expended much energy and discus- 
sion upon their laborious task. 
The new constitution was adopted 
on May 14th, 1885. 

On December ist, 1884, the 
pastors presented a proposition to 
establish three mission schools in 
the city of Lebanon, one in West Lebanon where 
Messrs. Reinoehl & Meily had" presented a lot to 
the Congregation for Chapel purposes, one in east 
Lebanon, in the vicinity of Fourth and Chestnut 
Streets and one in North Lebanon in the vicinity 
of Lehman Street. The Council authorized the es- 
tablishment of these Missions provided that no in- 
debtedness would thereby be incurred by the Con- 
gregation, and appointed a committee on the mat- 
ter. No available room could be rented at the time 
in West Lebanon or in East Lebanon, but in North 




OLD SALEM CHURCH 



203 



Lebanon a small room was rented and the Trinity 
Mission was begun in January, 1885. Miss Tillie 
McCaully, Miss Celia Bohr, and Mr. Charles Heil- 
man constituted the original directing force and on 
the 1 8th of January the first session was held with 
an attendance of fifty-four children. Subsequently 
J. E. Reinoehl, Esq., became Superintendent of the 
Main Department and Miss Emma Schmauk Su- 
perintendent of the Infant Department. Mean- 
time the Salem Sunday-school 
increased to over eight hundred 
pupils and one hundred andi 
forty new members were added 
to the congregation during this 
year. 

Shortly after 1883 the pastors 
held services at Fontana and Bis- 
marck and finally began regu- 
lar service at Rex's school-house 
with a view to establishing a congregation in Corn- 
wall. On December 3d, 1883, the church council 
appointed Messrs. Samuel Fies, Jacob Bastian and 
John Kunze a committee on Cornwall chapel. 
Twelve hundred dollars were collected for the pur- 
pose of erecting a building and in 1884 the new 
Cornwall chapel was dedicated. Under the superin- 
tendency of Mr. H. B. Gerhart and Mrs. S. E. Fox 
the Sunday-school was in a very flourishing condi- 
tion, and the congregation would have been placed 
on a solid foundation if the failure of Mr. Robert H. 
Coleman and the depression of the iron industry 




204 



REVS. B. W. AND T. E. SCHMAUK 



had not caused the removal of many of the most 
substantial members from the vicinity of Cornwall. 
Mr. Howard Keiser deserves great credit for con- 
ducting the Cornwall Mission school successfully 
under these depressing conditions. The dimensions 
of the Cornwall church are 49x52 feet. The founda- 
tion is of brown stone and the remainder of the 
structure is of brick and fancy woodwork. 

About this time the congregation built a small 
frame mission in Martin, Florida. 

In May, 1889, the Ministerium of Pennsylvania 
met in Lebanon, the event being the one hundredth 
anniversary of the first meeting of the venerable 
body in this congregation. Rev. G. F. Krotel, 
D.D.,LL.D., one of the former pastors of Salem, 
was president of the body. Mr. John A. Uhler pre- 
sented the Synod with a mallet made from wood 
taken from a log of the original Salem building. 

On July 7th, 1889, a mission was 
organized in the lower floor of the 
building No. 212 Chestnut street. 
On Sunday, July 14th, the school 
was opened with an attendance of 
over ninety. Mr. H. U. Bean be- 
came the Superintendent and Mrs. 
Fox Superintendent of the infant 
department with Mrs. Coble as as- 
sistant. Mr. Elias Suavely was the Secretary and 
Mr. Cyrus Suavely the Treasurer. The Salem con- 
gregation set apart a lot now fronting one hundred 




OLD SALEM CHURCH 205 

feet on Chestnut street and extending a half block 
olong Second street for the mission. A chapel was 
erected and on Sunday, November 2d, was conse- 
crated with appropriate ceremonies. The total cost 
of the building was $2,456.35. The St. James' Mis- 
sion is one of the most active and prosperous of all 
the Salem organizations. The present Superinten- 
dent is Mr. J. E. L. Schmidt. The St. James' Mis- 
sion Workers have repeatedly raised funds to beau- 
tify the Mission.. 

On June loth, 1890, the congregation at the so- 
licitation of the pastors, decided ''to secure an addi- 
tional pastor for mission work — to have charge of 
the mission work at Lehman Street Mission and 
also the Cornwall charge." Rev. B. W. Schmauk, 
a few weeks later selected Rev. Frank M. Seip for 
this purpose and he was called to be the pastors' as- 
sistant. On February loth, 1891, on motion of 
Judge A. Reinoehl, it was agreed "that Rev. Mr. 
Seip be authorized to organize a congregation 
which shall elect its own ofificers under the direc- 
tion and after consultation with the pastors of Old 
Salem." Shortly thereafter Trinity became an in- 
dependent congregation. It has since remodeled 
its building and bought an additional lot and par- 
sonage, and put up a Sunday-school chapel. 

In 1890 the Annville congregation erected a 
beautiful and commodious brick church building, to 
take the place of the smaller one built years before. 
It was consecrated on April 27th, 1890. The size 
of the building is 40x60 feet, and last year a Sunday- 



206 



REVS. B. W. AND T. E, SCHMAUK 




school wing 30x40 feet was added and consecrated 
during the Fall. The property is paid for. 

On April 26, 1891, the Grace Luth- 
eran Mission at Sunnyside was or- 
ganized with a band of faithful 
workers. Mr. George M. Stanley 
is the Superintendent of the Mis- 
sion, and Mr. Henry Heilman, of 
Sunnyside, the organist. It is a 
curious thing that the latest mis- 
sion of Salem is the one that has 
begun operations almost within a 
stone's throw of the old Stoever home. 

For many years there have been members of Sa- 
lem who have felt that the old congregation should 
take a long stride forward by erecting a church as 
worthy of our effort in our day, as the present fine 
building was worthy of the best effort of the fathers 
in their day. But the difficulties connected with 
the question were almost insuperable, because of the 
complications introduced by the questions of lan- 
guage and location. An effort was made to gain 
subscriptions for a new English church some years 
ago, and after severe and prolonged labor it was 
abandoned as an almost hopeless task, if peace and 
good feeling were to survive. But Rev. B. W. 
Schmauk made up his mind last Fall that it was im- 
perative for Old Salem to go forward today if she is 
not to go backward tomorrow. He expressed him- 
self repeatedly to this effect and after much con- 
sultation and discussion it was finally decided that a 



OLD SALEM CHURCH 



207 



new chapel was within the range of possibiHty and 
would provide for the ordinary wants of the school 
and the extraordinary wants of the church, at least 
for some years to come. With this in view Rev. 
Schmauk last Winter preached a sermon of wonder- 
ful strength and eloquence on the text "Forward, O 
Israel." It was his last word to his beloved people. 
But on Palm Sunday morning, before service, the 
day on which for fifteen years, the father and son 
together had preceded the body of catechumens in 
moving up the aisle of the church in joyous pro- 
cession, the latter learned that there was no hope 
for his father. He died, seemingly still so strong, 
that night, April 4th, and was buried on Good Fri- 
day, the day which he had set for his reappearance 
in the pulpit. Neither congregation nor communi- 
ty could have manifested a deeper sympathy than 
was shown on this occasion. Subsequently the 
Council and congregation, by unanimous vote, de- 
termined to carry out the plan begun. 

The proposed Salem Memorial 
Chapel is in the shape of a cross 
120 by 80 feet, and is expected to 
Beat 1500 people. It will be fitted 
for the graded course of school 
instruction that is being introduced 

into the schools of the Ministe- "Salem Memorial Ch.pel.' 

rium. It was expected to lay the corner-stone of 
the building during this centennial celebration of 
Salem, but the repeated illness of the pastor has 
made this impossible. A few weeks ago. Rev. E. P. 




2o8 REVS. B. W. AND T. E. SCHMAUK 

H. Pfatteicher, of Easton, recently ordained by- 
Synod, was elected as assistant to the pastor and 
will be installed on July i. Day after tomorrow Sa- 
lem will celebrate her Centennial Jubilee with three 
services, and it is expected that Dr. Schantz will 
preach at 9 a. m., the pastor at 10.30, and Rev. Dr. 
G. F. Krotel at 7.30 p. m. The Sunday-schools will 
celebrate their anniversary on Monday evening; 
Hon. C. R. Lantz's class Tuesday evening, and va- 
rious Societies on Wednesday evening. 

The officers of the congregation in this year 1898 
are President, Rev. Theodore E. Schmauk, Elders, 
Hon. C. R. Lantz, Dr. W. S. Huber, Dawson Cole- 
man and Harry A. Reinoehl; Trustees, Cyrus 
Zweitzig, Moses Bittner, Cyrus Miller and Adam 
Fernsler; Secretary, Geo. W. Hayes, Esq., Finan- 
cial Secretary, John A. Uhler; Treasurer, John Rein- 
oehl ; Organists, Miss Vara Uhler and Mrs. Annie Ma- 
haney; Leaders of Choir, A.B.CarmanyandGeo. B. 
Scheetz; Chapel Building Committee, the pastor, 
George Gossert, Geo. W. Hayes, C. R. La^tz, 
Harry A. Reinoehl, Samuel A. Louser, Dr. J. 
Mease, John A. Uhler, A. B. Carmany and Miss 
K. A. Zweitzig. The Secretary of the Building 
Fund is George H. Kreitzer. The amount sub- 
scribed at this date for the chapel is $15,000. The 
Trustees have beautifully renovated the century-old 
building. 

May the multitude of souls that have thronged 
the courts of Salem, the fathers and the children, 
meet and abide with the King of Salem in His 
own eternal courts. 



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